Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Gunner Clifford Hugh De Lance Holmes (Service No:NX21568) initially enlisted in QLD as a Private (Service No:QX328) on 6 November 1939 and was Discharged as medically unfit on 1 December 1939. He then enlisted in Sydney, NSW on 27 May 1940 and was a Gunner attached to 2/1st Medium Artillery Regiment at Discharge on 21 August 1940. Sibling Ralph also served in WWII.

Cliff - the fourth of eight children - was born in 1906 in Gloucestershire, England to William Cleveland Lionel De Lance Holmes (b1872 in Illinois, USA) and Elizabeth Maud Mary Curry (b1876 in Hampshire, England). William (a Traveller) and Elizabeth married in 1899 in Bristol Gloucestershire and lived there and in Somerset where they raised their family and William worked as an Insurance Agent, Insurance Inspector and Superintendent of an Insurance Coy.

Cliff immigrated in 1922, arriving is Sydney, NSW on board the Moreton Bay - stating he was a Farm Labourer. Cliff lived in Adaminaby nr Cooma in the Snowy Mountains where he worked as a Labourer and Station Hand. He was in Queensland in 1939 when he first enlisted in the Army, stating he was Motor Cycle and Car Driver and Horseman in his Attestation Papers. Discharged as medically unfit within a few weeks, Cliff went to Sydney where he stated he was a Wool Classer when he again enlisted in the Army. In 1941 in Wallsend, Newcastle, NSW Cliff married Ena Elsie Hanscombe (b1916 in St Leonards. NSW). Cliff and Elsie lived in Sydney, NSW before moving to Tasmania by 1948 where Cliff was a Farmer in Wilmot, and then to Winnaleah in Tasmania where he was a Licensced Victualler and Hotelkeeper. In the early 1960s Cliff and Ena moved to Dundowran nr Pialba in QLD where Cliff was a Farmer until retiring in the early 1970s and moving to Pialba. Cliff died in 1973 and Ena in 1978.