Jenny and Darren Kingsford from Glenbrook NSW and Graham and Judy Phipp from Dubbo did not know each other before meeting on their Mat McLachlan Battlefield Tour of the Western Front, but it is extremely likely – almost definite – that their Anzac relatives, Bernard Coyte and Donald Ferguson did, serving side by side in the trenches and on the front before meeting their untimely deaths on the same day.
The couples met while on the 9-day Mat McLachlan Western Front Signature Tour, visiting all of the Australian battlefields of the Somme, Flanders Fields and Ypres Salient in the company of Australian war historian, Mat McLachlan.
In an incredible coincidence, they discovered their Anzac relatives – Bernard Coyte and Donald Ferguson – served in the same company, in the same battalion, and died in the same battle on the same day and are now buried alongside each other in the same cemetery – Jeancourt Communal Cemetery Extension on the Western Front in France.
Jenny and Darren Kingsford’s Anzac relative, Bernard Coyte (Regimental number 4757. 13th Battalion), served on the Western Front in Belgium and France from 1916 to 1918. Sadly, just ahead of the end of the war in November 1918, Coyte was killed in action on 18 September 1918 during an attack launched by the 13th Battalion on the German Lines south of the village of Le Verguier, France.
Serving alongside Coyte was Graham and Judy Phipp’s Anzac relative, Donald Ferguson (Regimental number 5683. 13th Battalion), who also took part in this action, which successfully attacked and captured the Hidenburg Line Outposts here.
But while Le Verguier was captured by the Australians on 18 September 1918, as with all of the Great War, it was not without significant sacrifice. Both Bernard Coyte and Donald Ferguson – together with other soldiers on both sides – lost their lives on this day, and both now lie in their final resting place in a small cemetery in France, close to where this battle was fought.
“Jeancourt is a tiny village in the Aisne department of France. It’s not a place that many battlefield visitors come to, and I had only been there once before,” said Mr McLachlan.
“I was here again because I was leading a tour, and one of the passengers had a relative who was buried in this cemetery. But it turned out that not one passenger on the tour, but two, had relatives who were buried in the cemetery. Incredibly, both men had served in the same battalion, and both had been killed on the same day. The passengers on the tour did not know each other, and yet it was highly likely that their soldier relatives did.
“Unsurprisingly, it was an emotional moment for the entire group to stand beside these two graves, and to think about the young men who lay in them. In a quiet moment I stepped away and explored the whole cemetery. Like all military cemeteries, it told a story, but the one revealed here was fascinating, and brought several chapters of history, and the story of the Anzacs, together.
“In 1914 German troops swept across this area and captured Jeancourt, and they established a field hospital here. Men who died while being treated in the hospital were buried in a field next to the local civilian cemetery.
“This was the basis of Jeancourt Cemetery, as reflected by a large plot of more than 160 German graves. The village was captured by the British in 1917, and the cemetery was used by them to bury their own dead, before it fell to the Germans in early-1918. The final chapter of the story was when Australian troops recaptured the village for the last time in September 1918, and nearly 100 Australians now lie in the cemetery,” he said.
How to visit the Western Front: Mat McLachlan Battlefield Tours offers a range of tours to the battlefields of the Western Front, including a 4-day Western Front Explorer that departs weekly from Paris. And, Mat McLachlan himself will again be leading a 9-day Western Front Signature Tour in 2025, departing 30 August from Paris. Visit www.battlefields.com.au.
