Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Ernest was the middle of three brothers. His older brother, James William Ramsay, S/N 333, served in the Boer War with the 5th Queensland Imperial Bushmen's Contingent. Younger brother, Percy Leonard Ramsay, S/N 5396, served in France with the 25th Battalion and was KIA 10th June 1918.
Worked as a Carter before enlisting in Brisbane on 2nd March 1916.
Posted to the 41st Battalion. Started a diary the day he left Brisbane, by train, on 16th May 1916. Entered details every day of shipboard life on HMAT A64 Demosthenes.
Food, living conditions, submarine watch, all detailed. Continued his diary through training in England, including his first sighting of a plane. The diary stops the day he left England for France on 24th November 1916.
Army records show he sustained a leg injury and was transferred from the 1st Canadian General Hospital in Etaples, France, to the Central Military Hospital Fort Pitt in Chatham, England on 2nd July 1917. Certified unfit for further duty he was transferred from Westham Camp in Weymouth to the troopship HMAT A29 Suevic and left England on 27th September 1917. His second diary started on the same day. Describing the trip home including burials at sea, the ever present fear of submarines, collecting coal for the ship etc. He arrived home in Brisbane by train on 21st November 1917.
Misplaced for many years, the diaries were found and transcribed verbatim in 2017.
The family contacted the Australian War Memorial and described the content of the diaries, which were different to most as there was no war content.
The AWM asked if they could have them for their collection and they would also restore both books to original condition. Both were handed over on 9th March 2017 along with original letters from my Grandfather to his Mother, sent from Sth Africa during the Boer War