Hand-to-hand fights against all odds
Albert Jacka was born on January 10, 1893, near Winchelsea in Victoria and worked as a labourer with his father, then for the Victorian State Forests Department before enlisting on September 18, 1914, into the 14th Battalion.
His unit trained at Broadmeadows and embarked on December 22 for two months further training in Egypt before landing at Gallipoli on April 26, 1915.
On May 19, the Turks launched massive frontal assaults and captured 10m of trench at Courtney’s Post. Lance-Cpl Jacka was guarding one end of it.
He held them at bay by firing into the trench parapet until reinforcements arrived. He then leapt into the trench with three others, who were shot immediately.
However, Lance-Cpl Jacka was unscathed and withdrew quickly. Bomb throwers created a diversion at one end of the Turkish position so he attacked from the flank, leaping into the trench to shoot five Turks, bayonet two others and drive the rest out. For this he was awarded Australia’s first Victoria Cross of the Great War.
“I managed to get the beggars, sir, ” he told the first officer to appear.
Lance-Cpl Jacka became famous as the face on recruiting posters and magazine covers and was promoted in Egypt on April 29, 1916, to 2nd-Lt.
The 14th Battalion went to France in June and Lt Jacka’s platoon took positions in trenches near Pozieres on the night of August 6, just before the Germans attacked.
Two Germans tossed a bomb into Lt Jacka’s dugout, which killed two comrades and spurred him to charge up the steps where a strong enemy force was marching 40 Australian prisoners away.
Lt Jacka rallied a handful of men who fired on the enemy point blank. The prisoners turned on their captors and 50 Germans were captured and the front line restored.
Lt Jacka was severely wounded and awarded the Military Cross, which many say should have been a second Victoria Cross, for “the most dramatic and effective act of individual audacity in the history of the AIF”.
He rejoined his unit in November and was appointed captain on March 15, 1917, as his reputation grew despite clashes with superior officers.
On April 8, Capt. Jacka supervised laying tapes for an attack on Bullecourt and finished as two Germans appeared. Capt. Jacka’s revolver misfired but he attacked and captured them by hand and was awarded a Bar to his Military Cross.
A sniper wounded him near Ploegsteert Wood on July 8 and he spent two months recuperating before leading the 14th Battalion in a successful attack against German pillboxes on September 26 near Polygon Wood. He was gassed at Villers-Bretonneux in May 1918 and was hospitalised again.
Capt. Jacka returned to Australia in September 1919 to a tumultuous reception, went into business with two former Diggers, married Frances Carey and adopted a daughter.
In 1929 he was elected to St Kilda Council and became mayor the next year but the business went into voluntary liquidation in 1930 and his health deteriorated.
He died from kidney disease on January 17, 1932, and was buried with full military honours in St Kilda cemetery, his coffin borne by eight Victoria Cross winners.
