STOCKDALE, Ernest James
| Service Number: | 3220 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | Not yet discovered |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | 53rd Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Sydney New South Wales, Australia, date not yet discovered |
| Home Town: | Sans Souci, Kogarah, New South Wales |
| Schooling: | Not yet discovered |
| Occupation: | Carpenter |
| Died: | Killed in Action, France, 20 May 1917, age not yet discovered |
| Cemetery: |
No known grave - "Known Unto God" Commemorated on Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, Villers-Bretonneux, Picardie, France |
| Memorials: | Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Miranda Central Public School Memorial, Sutherland WW1 Memorial Wall, Villers-Bretonneux Memorial |
World War 1 Service
| 11 Nov 1916: | Involvement Private, 3220, 53rd Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '19' embarkation_place: Sydney embarkation_ship: HMAT Suevic embarkation_ship_number: A29 public_note: '' | |
|---|---|---|
| 11 Nov 1916: | Embarked Private, 3220, 53rd Infantry Battalion, HMAT Suevic, Sydney |
Death of Stockdale
RECOLLECTION OF THE BATTLE OF BULLECOURT ON 20 MAY 2017 BY Private and Company Stretcher Bearer J.N. BRAZIER # 3118, , 2nd Platoon, “A” Company, 53rd Battalion, AIF
A CLOSE CALL IN THE FRONT LINE
RECORDING (TAPE) TIME : 07.09
(Paul) : Tell Georgie the time about that explosion, when you got blown up, never a scratch on you. Tell her about that. What was the story there ?
“Only one of a hundred instances. Oh no, Georgie doesn’t won’t be interested to hear about that. Silly war stories – you shouldn’t talk about them anyhow.
“Well it was my christening at Bullecourt and I thought it was great. And we had a feller by the name of Sam Horner, he was a stutterer. I can tell you about Sam, God bless poor old Sam, he'd be dead now. And he took pity on me. He took me under his wing that old cove – and looked after me, you know, things you know that I should and shouldn't do, and helped me a lot.
“We were in the trench towards the enemy, you get how the trenches go. There were 5 or 6 of us in that decent sort of a cover, with sandbags over the top to stop the shrapnel. So we were down, me and the stretchers… there were 3 of us. I don’t know how I got down into that dammed post now – we were waiting for the big one. I must have been detailed off to go down.”
“ And there was a sheet of iron, two sheets of iron put through the parapet back onto sandbags built up, see. The sheet of iron was covered up that much I suppose”
“My elbows were here, on the edge of the standing, and Stockdale (I remember his name because I looked him up) and he had his elbow on the other side, see? And between us there was two boxes of Mills grenades. They are pretty, pretty bad things to burst, I tell you. And a little whizz bang hit the parados behind us (ie mound of earth) and a piece of it flew over and exploded these two boxes and they went off, exploded, all 24 of them. Bang. And Stockdale, the feller that was next to me, there was only a box of grenades between us. And there wasn't a part of him left, cut off his arms and cut off …and we buried him in pieces.”
Submitted 27 October 2025 by David Marshall