Lucas Jordan: The Chipilly Six

On 9 August 1918, at Chipilly Spur overlooking the Somme River, an entire British Army Corps is held up by German machine gunners.

The battle has raged for 30 hours and more than 2000 men have fallen. Then, two Australian sergeants, Jack Hayes and Harold Andrews, go absent without leave and cross the Somme ahead of British lines. Seeing that the British advance is stopped, they re-cross the river, gather four mates and return to drive the Germans off the spur.

The extraordinary feats of the Chipilly Six and the personal stories of these diggers have been overlooked. Historian Lucas Jordan weaves a compelling tale of the lives of the soldiers, chronicling their return home and years after service, through a pandemic, the Great Depression, another world war and the very first Anzac Day dawn service.

Join author Lucas Jordan on the eve of Anzac Day to uncover the story of the Chipilly Six and their extraordinary feats.

This event is presented in association with Action! Film & War, on display until 28 April 2024. This extraordinary exhibition chronicles the use of film in documenting the experiences of war, from before the First World War until today.


Lucas Jordan grew up in Burekup in Western Australia. He holds a PhD in history from the Australian National University. Lucas spent more than a decade teaching and researching in the Kimberley, Cape York and central Australia and co-wrote Amnesty International’s global report ‘“The land holds us”: Aboriginal peoples’ right to their traditional homelands in the Northern Territory’, which was based on six years of collaboration and camping with the Alyawarr and Anmatyerr people of the Northern Territory. Lucas is currently a leading teacher at Western English Language School, a secondary school for new arrivals and refugees in Melbourne, and occasionally consults on history projects. He is the author of Stealth Raiders: A few daring men in 1918. Lucas lives in Lara, Victoria, with his wife and two sons.