Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Rank: Private

Service Number:1237

Units: 16th Battalion and 10th Battalion

Personal Details: Maurice (Maurie as he was known) was born on the 16th of September 1894 in Minlaton on South Australia’s Yorke’s Peninsula. He was the 8th of 9 children born to George Andrew and Elizabeth (nee Booth) Bartley. He went to Minlaton School and was studying Telephone Engineering at the South Australian School of Mines and Industry when he enlisted. He was also working for J.S. Bagshaw, which would become known as Horwood Bagshaw, the farm machinery manufacturer based in Mannum, and this would be the reason that he stated that he was a carpenter on his enlistment form. (Grandfather Bartley’s brother)
Enlistment Details: Maurie enlisted on the 14th of September 1914, quite soon after war was declared. He was 2 days shy of his 20th birthday and therefore required his parents’ permission to enlist. He was 5’5” tall and weighed 140 pounds, with a fresh complexion, blue eyes and light brown hair. He listed himself as a member of the Church of England. He was assigned to the 16th Battalion of the 1st AIF. He had previous military training in the 78th Infantry.
Details about his role in the war: The 16th Battalion was a joint South Australian and Western Australian Battalion. Maurice was sent to Broadmeadows in Victoria for his training, where the Western Australian’s joined the South Australian contingent after some initial training at Blackboy Hill in Western Australia. Maurie arrived in camp on the 8th of December 1914 and on the 22nd, he, with the rest of the 16th Battalion, boarded the “Ceramic” at Port Melbourne and they set sail for Egypt. They arrived in Alexandria on the 1st of February 1915. They then travelled to Cairo and were in camp at Heliopolis on the 4th. In between training in the hot desert sands Maurie had the opportunity to meet his cousin George Turner who was in the 2nd battalion and camped at Mena. They spent a number of their free days together, including watching the infamous “Battle of the Wazzir” on the 2nd of April. This would be their last outing together as all leave was cancelled after this.
The 16th Battalion left Egypt and sailed to Lemnos where they trained in landing from a ship. On the 25th of April, the 16th Battalion landed late in the afternoon at Anzac Cove and quickly joined the fighting which had been going on all day by this time. The battalion made its way up Monash Valley and joined the frontline at Quinn’s Poast and Pope’s Hill. The fighting waxed and waned over the next week as the Turkish Army made a number of attempts to push the Allied forces back into to the sea. On the 2nd May the 16th Battalion was to form the right-hand flank of a push to take Baby 700 and to gain the ridge line above Bloody Angle. The attack was not successful, and the 16th Battalion suffered badly from enfilade machine gunfire. The casualty rate was high with 171 members of the 16th killed during this attack. A further 167 were wounded or captured. The wounded included Maurie who was shot through the leg and the chest in the original attack and was then shot in the arm as he lay wounded and waving for help in “No Man’s Land” after the attack. He later said that he was shot by an Australian who may have mistaken him for a Turkish soldier. It may have been a way to warn him not to wave as a shot from the other side might not have been aimed at his arm. He lay in “No Man’s Land” for 3 days before being able to make his way back to the original Australian lines at night. By then his wounds had started to become septic from the exposure to the dirt and warm conditions. He was then taken to the hospital ship “Gloucester Castle” and on to Alexandria where he arrived on the 9th of May, a week after he was wounded. On the 2nd of June he was transferred to England, originally to Manchester and then to the newly opened Australian Auxiliary Hospital at Harefield. He wrote a letter from there on the 22nd of June and as the hospital only opened on the 2nd of June, he was one of the first to be sent there. He was then sent to another hospital (Woodcote Park) for soldiers thought to be a month or so away from being ready for active service again but was only there for 3 weeks before being returned to Harefield. He was at Harefield when King George V and Queen Mary visited on the 16th of August. He remained in hospital with occasional leave, including attending the very first Anzac Commemorative Service in Westminster Abbey on the 25th of April 1916, until May 1916, when it was decided that he would be returned to Australia as medically unfit. On the 8th May he boarded the “Themistocles” at Portland to return to Australia. While he was back in Australia, he hadn’t been discharged and was “on leave”, free to visit family and friends in Adelaide in June and July of 1916. By early August he made the decision to return to the front and was assigned to the 19th Reinforcement of the 10th Battalion. On the 12th of August, he once more left Adelaide aboard the “Ballarat”. He was still using crutches to assist with his wounded ankle. He arrived in Plymouth on the 30th of September and trained for 3 months in the area around Salisbury. On the 17th of December he left England for France aboard the ‘Golden Eagle”. He was taken on strength by the 10th Battalion on Christmas Day 1916. On the 17th of February 1917 he was sent to hospital with influenza, and it was not until the 1st May that he returned to the battalion. He would have been involved in the fighting at Bullecourt on the 6th and 7th May with 2 of his future brothers-in-law. On the 30th of June, he was again sent to hospital with a sprained ankle, rejoining the battalion on the 22nd of July. The 3rd Battle of Ypres began on the 31st of July and the Australians were to join this battle in September. On the 19th of September the 10th Battalion moved forward to the frontlines near Ieper where it was involved in the Battle of Menin Road on the 20th to 22nd. They fought their way through Glencorse Wood and into the edge of Polygon Wood. The battalion then retired to Steenvoorde before returning to support lines just north of Polygon Wood on the 1st of October. The battalion spent the first week of October moving between support and reserve trenches. On the 2nd of October, in the vicinity of Westhoek Ridge, Maurice became a victim of one of the most insidious weapons of the First World War, Mustard Gas. He was admitted to the 1st Stationary Australian General Hospital at Abbeville before being sent to England. He was admitted to the 1st London General Hospital at Camberwell on the 21st of October 1917 and was then transferred to the 3rd Auxiliary Hospital at Dartford on the 28th of December. On the 19th January1918 he was sent to Hurdcott where he remained at the camp until he was sent to the 2nd Training Battalion at Sutton Veny on the 22nd of February. He remained there training in signals until the side effects of the gas returned and he was sent to hospital on Anzac Day 1918 with pleurisy. On the 21st of May, still suffering from pleurisy he was sent to Harefield once more to recover from injuries received on the battlefield. On the 27th he was sent to Weymouth in Dorset which was something of a pleasure camp for Australian soldiers recovering from wounds. On the 7th of June he boarded a ship for the last time to return to Australia. He was discharged from the army and returned to civilian life. Much later he married his cousin Ethel Turner, the sister of 2 of his cousins, who both lost their lives during the war. Together they had 5 children and farmed at Wudinna for some time. Maurie suffered with the effects of his initial wounds and his gassing for the remainder of his life but maintained a cheeky sense of humour and is remembered fondly by his extended family for the many stories that he told ensuring that he never let the truth spoil them. He died on the 17th of February 1967 at the age of 72 and is buried in the Derrick Gardens at Centennial Park Cemetery.