Private Thomas Makin, 14th Battalion, AIF
Australian War MemorialThomas Makin was born in 1893 in Wollongong, New South Wales to Thomas and Jane Makin. When he was still very young, the family moved to Korumburra in Gippsland, Victoria. He attended Korumburra Public School, and went on to work as a miner.
After the First World War began, Makin enlisted for service in the Australian Imperial Force at Wonthaggi on the 14th of January 1915. After his initial training, he was allotted to reinforcements to the 14th Battalion.
Makin embarked from Melbourne on 14 April with other reinforcements aboard the transport ship Hororata bound for Egypt. Further training in the desert followed before he embarked from Alexandria on 9 July, bound for Gallipoli.
Shortly after arriving on the peninsula he was taken on strength of the 14th Battalion. The 14th Battalion spent much of July based in Reserve Gully, where the men were sent on work parties performing a variety of duties such as digging defensive positions and carrying stores to front line positions.
The Gallipoli campaign had quickly become a stalemate after the landings in April 1915. To try and break out of the Anzac beachhead and return to a war of movement, a new offensive was planned for August.
Led by Colonel John Monash, the 4th Brigade – which included the 14th Battalion – was tasked with capturing the high ground between Chunuk Bair and Hill 971, the highest point on the Sari Bair Ridge, to secure a point from which to continue the advance to the Dardanelles and capture the forts that guarded the straits.
The 4th Brigade led the left column of the assault force and began moving off during the night of 6 August. Progress was slow due to the unfamiliarity of the terrain, poor maps and the Ottoman defenders putting up stiff resistance as New Zealanders cleared enemy outposts.
Confusion reigned throughout 7 August. Despite an advance of some 1,500 metres, the Australians – unsure of their actual positions – claimed they had reached an objective known as Abdel Rahman Dere, when in fact they were still some 650 metres short.
Ordered to continue the advance, the 14th and 15th Battalions resumed the attack in the early hours of 8 August and immediately came under a withering hail of rifle and machine-gun fire. The Australians never got close to their objective and the two battalions suffered heavy casualties. The attack was all over by 8.30 am and the 4th Brigade was forced to withdraw.
Among those killed that morning was Makin, who was believed to have been killed in an area known as “the poppy patch”. Though a number of casualties were recovered before the Australian withdrawal, Makin was unable to be found. With no known grave, today he is remembered on the Lone Pine Memorial to the Missing. He was 22 years old.
- AWM Honour Roll https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/R1648814
