Vagg, Thomas

No.4910 – Private Thomas Vagg – 51^st Battalion

Thomas Vagg was born in Fremantle WA in 1873 to Edward and Jessie Vagg.  He had two older siblings James; born 1868 and Elizabeth, born 1869. The Vagg’s lived in South Street Fremantle and Thomas was educated at the local primary school. After leaving school he found work as a labourer and worked in the Fremantle region for the next twenty to thirty years.

Prior to enlistment he was listed as living at 241 Hampton Road South Fremantle and was working as a lime burner.

On the 20^th December 1915 Thomas went to the Francis Street Drill Hall in Perth to enlist in the AIF. Despite being 42 years old Tom successfully enlisted with the medical examiner finding him to be 5 feet 5 & ½ inches tall; weight of 121lbs; chest measurement of 33-35 inches; fresh complexion; blue eyes and brown hair. His religious denomination was Church of England.

Upon his successful enlistment Tom was sent to Blackboy Hill Camp where he was assigned to No.39 Training Depot. Early in the New Year Tom was transferred to the 15^th Reinforcements to the 11^th Battalion AIF and the first three months of 1916 would be spent training with this group. Their embarkation orders soon came through and on the 1^st April 1916 Tom and his group boarded the HMAT Ulysses and set sail for Egypt.

Arriving in Egypt over three weeks later on the 25^th April Tom was then disembarked and marched into the AIF Reinforcement camp at Tel-el-Kebir camp. He remained in this camp for the next four weeks and on the 7^th June Tom went with the reinforcements to Alexandria where they boarded the HMT Huntspill and set sail for France, arriving at Marseilles on the 14^th June 1916.

They were then disembarked and marched through the city to the railway station where they boarded trains which took them to northern France. Tom arrived in Etaples where he marched into the 4^th Australian Division Base Depot. He remained at this depot until the 29^th July 1916 when he was taken on strength of the 51^st Battalion, who were then just arriving on the Somme battlefield.

In early August 1916, Tom’s 4^th Division relieved the 2^nd AIF Division as they pushed the line from Pozieres to Mouquet Farm and his stay with the Battalion would turn out to be a short one. On the 14^th August 1916 the 51^st Battalion took part in an unsuccessful assault on the German positions and unfortunately Tom was one of the men killed in this attack. His body was never recovered and he is therefore commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial.