Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Private Robert William Bowden (Service No:NX57215) enlisted in the AIF on 11 July 1940 with 6 Infantry Training Battalion. Private Bowden served with 17 Infantry Battalion in Libya (3 February 1941 - 12 August 1942) and the Torres Strait Islands (25 May 1944 - 22 October 1945), and was a Gunner attached to 17th Infantry Battalion at Discharge on 18 December 1945. Son Ventry (Service No:218411) served in the Vietnam War.

Bob was born in Sydney, New South Wales in 1906, eldest of three children of Robert Wyndham Bowden (b1884 in Sydney, New South Wales) and Martha Louisa Smedley (b1881 in Botany, New South Wales). Robert (a Railways Employee) and Martha married in 1906 in Sydney, where they lived until 1919 when Robert enlisted in the Police Force as a Constable. Robert and Martha lived in Narooma, Curlewis and Sydney, where they raised their family and Robert was a Police Constable. Retiring from the Police Force in 1944, Robert and Martha lived in Sydney, where Robert worked as a Commissionaire for Burns, Philp Co Ltd until his death in 1957.

Bob started as a Probationary Police Constable (No:2996) in Sydney, and by 1930 was a Constable in Dubbo. Bob resigned from the Police Force in the early 1930s, and settled in Sydney where he was a Storekeeper in 1939 when he married his first wife Iris Mavis Cullen (b1916 in Sydney, New South Wales). In 1942 Bob was 'on service abroad' when Iris was killed in Sydney in a collision between a taxi and a tram (sixteen month old son Robert was injured). In 1943 in Sydney, Bob remarried to Lavinia Myrtle Tanner (b1918 in Casterton, Victoria) - Lavinia worked in Melbourne as a Clerk. Following his Discharge in December 1945, Bob and Lavinia and their three children lived in a tent in Sydney (Trove: 1949) before moving to Grafton, where they settled and raised their family and Bob joined the Postmaster General's Department as a Lineman and later Foreman. Bob and Lavinia were living in Ettalong when they divorced in 1965 - Lavinia lived in Ettalong with the children and worked as a Secretary and Bob lived at Palm Beach via Ettalong with his mother, and worked as a Linesman with the Postmaster General's Department. Bob died in 1974.