Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Gordon was the youngest of 12 children born to Herbert and Edith. His birth is registered as Cecil Gordon (Blackwood district, reg. 124/1917). He had six brothers, including one who was stillborn, and five sisters. Sadly, two of his sisters died in the 1930s.

Gordon enlisted in June 1940 in his hometown of Bridgetown. His father died suddenly in December 1941 (see https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/266804279), by which time Gordon had been serving in the Middle East for almost a year.

Two of his brothers also enlisted in WWII - Charles (Sgt, W27472) and John (WX19845). John was serving in the same battalion as Gordon when he was killed in action in Papua New Guinea in 1943.

Gordon was a POW on board the Italian transport ship Nino Bixio when it was torpedoed by a British submarine in the Mediterranean on 17 August 1942. The Nino Bixio was transporting Allied POWs from Libya to Italy. He was one of the 122 Australian POWs to survive the incident. Most of the 41 casualties were from Gordon's battalion. 

He was in an Italian internment camp until being transferred to Stalag 18A in Germany in March 1944. He was deplaned to the UK in May 1945, finally arriving back in Australia (Sydney) in July 1945, then returning to WA for rehabilitation in August of that year. 

Gordon married Winifred Eileen JONES in 1955 in Bridgetown. He died at age 61 and is interred at Bridgetown Cemetery, as are his parents and sister Mary. His mother died in Bunbury in 1974 at age 98.