Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Son of Charles Barclay KIDSON, Sergent-at-Arms in the Legislatvie Assembly, and Mary Amelia KIDSON nee DOYLE. Grandson of the late Sir William Doyle, Chief Justice of Gibralta.

Husband of Joan Marie KIDSON nee FORBES, 19 Salvado Street, Cottesloe, WA.

The Kidson boys, who went at the first call, have certainly had adventures. Without previous military training they won their first stripes the first week in camp, the second on the  troopship; and the third in Egypt. News has just" come through that Platoon Sergeant Edric Doyle Kidson, of the famous 12th Battalion (missing since the historic landing in April  25), the only N.C.O. or officer with his party at the time, took an advanced Turkish trench and held it until the Turks, were very heavily reinforced. When our men arrived later and retook the trench there were innumerable Turkish dead and some Australian dead and wounded, and the gallant young N.C.O. and many of his parly were supposed to be prisoners of war. His brother, Sergeant Noel Doyle Kidson, of the 10th Light Horse, shortly after the regiment arrived in May, received, when throwing a bomb, a wound that has  done away with the use of a finger, was temporarily blind and deaf, and when convalescent without any furlough returned to the firing line. He was in time for the now famous  charge of the 10th Light Horse of August 29, had a miraculous escape from four high-explosive ; shells, and was invalided back to Malta suffering severely from concussion and  subsequent fever. A comrade writes: "Kidson has had a charmed life-a coincidence, too, is in the fact, that thc sergeant taking his place, when wounded in hospital at Malta, was  killed outright in the charge of August 7, and a young lieutenant killed in the charge of the 29th received, a commission Kidson had missed when away in hospital."

Mrs. C. B. Kidson received information from the military authorities that her son, Sergeant Noel Doyle Kidson had left Malta en route to Australia, and was at the 1st Auxiliary  Hospital at Cairo, waiting for a transport homeward bound. Sergeant Kidson was amongst the first to enlist for active service shortly after the declaration of war, and was therefore with the Australian troops which made the famous landing at the Dardanelles. Later on he was reported amongst the severely wouuded, and has since then been attacked first  with neurasthenia, and subsequently with enteric fever, which necessitated his removal to hospital. Although young in years, Sergeant Kidson has greatly distinguished himself in  action, and his friends predict for him a successful career in his profession.