Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Edward BURKE, (Service Number 10035) was born on 23 January 1896 at Trichinoply, near Madras in India. From February 1913 he had been working as a shop boy in the Locomotive Workshops at Eveleigh. He remained with this job designation until 1917 when he formally became a labourer, though by that date he was serving in the AIF in France. Certainly, on his Attestation Papers he gave his calling as ‘Railway shop boy’. He was released from duty to join the Expeditionary Forces on 16 February 1916, and at that time already had 18 months service with the 38th Infantry Battalion of the Australian Militia.
He left Australia through Sydney, 5 July 1916, on HMAT ‘Ajana’, reaching Plymouth at the end of August. He proceeded overseas to Belgium on 22 November, serving with the 9th Field Company of Australian Engineers.
On 16 July 1916 he was disciplined for being in Hazebrouck without a pass as well as being improperly dressed and not wearing a belt or bandolier. For this offence he was awarded 14 days confined to camp, but this time must have been overtaken by circumstances, as he was killed on the frontlines only six days later on 26 July 1917.
Working near the front line establishing and repairing trenches, he was hit by machine gun fire high on his leg such that even his mates first aid could not stem the bleeding and he died in a few minutes and was buried close by in a makeshift grave marked by a cross. Despite the risk that the location of such isolated and quickly marked graves could be lost in subsequent warfare as the front fluctuated, it was not lost and after the war, when burial places were rationalised, Burke’s remains were exhumed and placed in Messines Ridge British Cemetery, Flanders, Belgium.
(NAA B2455-3168855)