Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Ernest Barrington Knight was born in Petersburg on the 14th May 1895 to Arthur Ernest and Margaret Knight (nee Wickham) of Alpha Terrace, Solomontown Port Pirie.

Ernest was a 19 year old single labourer with 3 years’ experience serving with the 81st Infantry, Citizen Military Forces when he enlisted on the 2nd September 1914. He sailed from Adelaide aboard HMAT Ascanius with the “C” Company 10th Battalion on the 20th October 1914. Other Pirie boys in “C” Company that sailed with him included Alfred James Gray, John Murdoch Hoare, Mervyn Merritt Bath Middleton, Leonard Reid Walker and William John Nagle.
Ernest was wounded during the Gallipoli landing.

The exact number of casualties for the landing is not known. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission documents 754 Australian and 147 New Zealand soldiers died on April 25th 1915 with countless more wounded. Ernest wrote the following letter to his parents having been dangerously wounded by gunshot to the right ankle.

“Dear Mother and Dad,
Just a line to let you know I am getting on pretty well, and that the Turks got a couple of bullets into me on April 25th a Sunday it was. It is nothing serious so you need not worry. They are both in the right foot. The ankle bone is shattered and so I will have a good spell now. It gives me a lot of pain and I cannot walk; that stings. I was one of the first to land in Turkey. I lasted about 11 hours in the firing line. We had no trenches because the fire was too hot for us, and we didn’t have time to dig any.
With love from your loving son
E. B.KNIGHT.”

He convalesced at No1. Australian Auxiliary Hospital in Harefield, Middlesex, England and was discharged medically unfit on the 24th Jan 1916 with 1 year 145 days service and returned to Australia. He married Mildred Mabel Sowden in 1922 and died on the 15th Sept 1952 in Dudley Park, South Australia.
Source:
Port Pirie Recorder and North Western Mail, Fri 11 Jun, 1915