11345 Private Ernest Sainsbury, 1890-4/1/1918.

Edward's grave at Andersons Bay Cemetery, Dunedin

Ernest Sainsbury grew up in Skippers, one of the more remote gold mining localities in Otago.  It's a place of isolation, of freezing winters and burning summers.  His father was a gold miner, working steadily at his nearby claim and also living off the vegetable garden and the eggs and milk of the hens and goats they kept.

Edward was educated at the Queenstown Main School and left home to work on a dairy farm at Upper Junction, Dunedin.  From there, he volunteered for the Great War.  Of the Sainsbury's five sons, three were enlisted in the army for the war, Edward leaving New Zealand in 1915 (presumably a volunteer) and Ernest and Walter being called up in 1917.

Edward was enlisted as a Private in the Otago Infantry Regiment and first served in Egypt, after the Gallipoli Campaign.  The Regiment then moved to France and was readied for what the British called "the Big Push."  The British volunteer "Kitchener" soldiers had been trained and the almost disastrous lack of artillery and shells had been rectified.  Everything was ready for the effort which would begin the end of the war.  British troops would break the Germans lines and British cavalry would pour through and chase the Germans back to Berlin.

The Otagos were not committed to the offensive, which began on July 1st, 1916, for several months.  It was the middle of September when they in position near Flers and were given instructions to make their first assault on German positions.  The artillery barrage was unlike anything they'd seen at Gallipoli and the eager troops had to pause twice to allow the steadily moving barrage to lift in front of them.  The artillery was, however, not the decisive factor in the day as the men realised when German machine guns opened fire from the shattered tranches.  This was a common experience on the Somme.  The German had prepared themselves with deep, concrete lined shelters for waiting out the barrage.  They were confident that, as fast as their enemy might approach when the guns stopped, they could be faster in clearing out the entrances and bringing up their machine guns.

On October the first, 1916, the Otagos were part of a major assault on German lines in the Battle of the Somme.  Four waves advanced "each perfect in line and interval, and with rifles at the slope." (Official History of the Otago Regiment)  The heavy artillery bombardment before the assault had wrecked the enemy trenches but the German machine gunners, yet again, were on the parapet as soon as the bombardment lifted.  Casualties are described in the Official History as "severe" - of the 19 officers and 314 other ranks who began the attack, 9 officers and 259 other ranks were killed, wounded or missing by the end of the two day period of taking and holding the enemy position. 

It was during these two days that Edward was wounded with a bullet under his right arm which paralysed the arm and put him in hospital, first the Canadian Hospital in France and then the 3rd London General Hospital.  While in hospital Edward suffered trench fever - a bacterial disease spread by lice - twice.  It was probably trench fever which resulted in a condition called fibrosis of the lung, a permanent scarring of the lung tissue which causes shortness of breath - if the patient is lucky.

The Lake Wakatip Mail described his experience in his obituary: "When he was considered any way fit to undertake the journey he was brought out to New Zealand in the hospital ship Marama as one of the cot cases, arriving at Port Chalmers on the 27th of August (1917). Since that time he had been an inmate of the Dunedin Hospital. In this institution he received treatment at the hands of the most skilful physicians and surgeons, but without avail. His sufferings were intense during the latter part of his illness and, big powerful man that he had been, his poor body wasted away to nothing — as if with slow poisoning."  

He was 28 years old.  His military funeral at Andersons Bay Cemetery was attended by large numbers of the public.

Edward's commemoration record on the site of the Upper Junction School, Dunedin