Born in the year 1888 in Korrelocking WA. Ernest was a bushman of 26 years and 7 months old when he enlisted on the 28th September 1914. His next of kin was his father, James Tate of Digger's Rest. His mother was Elizabeth Milburn.
He was assigned to the 16th Battalion.
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| The 16th Battalion marching through Melbourne in 1914. [Captain C Longmore, The Old Sixteenth, Perth, 1929 |
All ranks embarked thoroughly wet and with symptoms of a great prevalence of influenza
[16th Battalion War Diary, Unit War Diaries 1914-18 War, item 23/33/1-5, AWM 4]
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| HMAT A40 Ceramic |
They sailed for Egypt at 2.30 pm that afternoon. Ernest embarked on the same day on the HMAT Berrima A35.
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| HMAT Berrima A35 Embarkment Roll |
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| HMAT Berrima A35 |
On 3 February 1915, the battalion disembarked at Alexandria, Egypt. They travelled by train to camp at Heliopolis and remained there, undergoing training, until early April. On 4 April, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) received orders to hold itself in readiness to leave Egypt. The 16th Battalion left by train for Alexandria on 11 April where they boarded the troopship Hyda Pasha and on the afternoon of 25 April off the Gallipoli peninsula the battalion assembled in the ship’s hold:
There, for the last time in this world, many of us stood shoulder to shoulder. As I looked down the ranks of my comrades, I wondered much which of us were marked for the Land Beyond. We were transferred from the transport to the destroyer, which took us close into the shore, and then we were transferred into the ship’s boats and rowed to the shore, amidst a hail of shells.At about 6 pm, the 16th Battalion went ashore at Anzac Cove and made their way into the hills. The column occupied a sharp edge of spur that afterwards bore their commanding officer’s name, Pope’s Hill. They spent the night digging in along the edge under intense rifle fire. For the next five days they stayed there, holding the hill, with Turkish troops to their front and rear.
[Ellis Silas, drawing, ‘The Last Assembly’, Gallipoli, April 251915, Crusading at Anzac, AD 1915, London, 1916]
During the darkness of their first night on Gallipoli, there was confusion about Indian troops who were supposedly in the same area, when in fact they were Turkish soldiers. A small party led by Colonel Pope went forward to speak to their commanding officer. Pope, discovering the mistake, jumped over a ridge and escaped but three other men with him were captured and became prisoners of war. Now that they knew that they were surrounded by Turks, not Indians, defences were improved and fighting was fierce. Snipers, who had penetrated the nearby ridge at Russell’s Top and were at the rear of the battalion’s trenches, caused many casualties.
At dawn on 26 April, the warships shelled Russell’s Top, breaking up the Turkish ranks, but there were still many accurate snipers. All that day, the battalion’s two machine-guns sniped back at the Turks on Russell’s Top and many of the original gun crew were killed or wounded. During the next two days, there were attempts to reinforce the battalion, and on 27 April the 2nd Battalion took Russell’s Top and, together with a reinforcement of New Zealanders, manned it strongly. At about 2.30 that afternoon, the Turks organised a six-line attack, advancing on Walker’s Ridge, Russell’s Top and Pope’s Hill. Shells from the navy ships stopped the attack but they continued to snipe. Later that night, there was another determined attack, but the Turks were practically annihilated by machine-gun and rifle fire.
Ernest was killed in action in the charge of Pope's Hill about the 27th April 1915. A witness saw Ernest's mates immediately after the charge and thy told him that Tate had been killed. The bodies of those in the charge were never recovered.
His name is on a Lone Pine Memorial (Panel 57), Gallipoli, Turkey. The Lone Pine Memorial, situated in the Lone Pine Cemetery at Anzac, is the main Australian Memorial on Gallipoli, and one of four memorials to men of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Designed by Sir John Burnet, the principal architect of the Gallipoli cemeteries, it is a thick tapering pylon 14.3 metres high on a square base 12.98 metres wide. It is constructed from limestone mined at Ilgardere in Turkey. The Memorial commemorates the 3268 Australians and 456 New Zealanders who have no known grave and the 960 Australians and 252 New Zealanders who were buried at sea after evacuation through wounds or disease. The names of New Zealanders commemorated are inscribed on stone panels mounted on the south and north sides of the pylon, while those of the Australians are listed on a long wall of panels in front of the pylon and to either side. Names are arranged by unit and rank. The Memorial stands over the centre of the Turkish trenches and tunnels which were the scene of heavy fighting during the August offensive. Most cemeteries on Gallipoli contain relatively few marked graves, and the majority of Australians killed on Gallipoli are commemorated here.
Ernest Tate's name on the Lone Pine Memorial (Panel 57)
Ernest's name can be found on panel 81 in the Commemorative Area at the Australian War Memorial .
Andrew Tate (his great nephew wrote an article for The AGE in 2008). Read about "The Rest We Forget" and "True remembrance"
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