William Albert FRAHM

FRAHM, William Albert

Service Numbers: 834, 3766
Enlisted: 6 August 1914, Place of first Enlistment Sydney New South Wales. 1st Enlistment, Service No 834.
Last Rank: Private
Last Unit: 7th Field Ambulance
Born: South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 1888
Home Town: Paddington, Woollahra, New South Wales
Schooling: Not yet discovered
Occupation: Glass Cutter
Died: Tasmania, Australia. , 9 March 1939, cause of death not yet discovered
Cemetery: Cornelian Bay Cemetery and Crematorium, Tasmania
PLOT Derwent Gardens, Niche Wall, H, Number 20, Row B.
Memorials: Hobart Roll of Honour
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World War 1 Service

6 Aug 1914: Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 834, Place of first Enlistment Sydney New South Wales. 1st Enlistment, Service No 834.
19 Aug 1914: Involvement Private, 834, 1st Infantry Battalion, Naval and Military Forces - Special Tropical Corps, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '21' embarkation_place: Sydney embarkation_ship: HMAT Berrima embarkation_ship_number: A35 public_note: ''
18 Jan 1915: Discharged AIF WW1, Private, 834
8 Mar 1915: Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 3766, 7th Field Ambulance, Place of Enlistment, Claremont, Tasmania.
29 Jun 1915: Involvement Private, 3766, 7th Field Ambulance, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '22' embarkation_place: Brisbane embarkation_ship: HMAT Aeneas embarkation_ship_number: A60 public_note: ''
29 Jun 1915: Embarked Private, 3766, 7th Field Ambulance, HMAT Aeneas, Brisbane
29 Jan 1916: Discharged AIF WW1, Private, 3766, 7th Field Ambulance, Discharged Medically Unfit.

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Biography contributed by Lynette Turner

He was living at Paddington in Sydney as a glass cutter when he enlisted in the Australian Naval and Military Expedition’s 1st Australian Expeditionary Force on 16 August 1914. He was 26 and had previously served for 3½ years in the Field Artillery’s 41st Battery, Citizen Forces. He gave his religion as Roman Catholic. He embarked aboard the Berrima at Sydney on 19 August as Private, No. 834, H Company of the A. N. & M. E. F. and arrived at Palm Island on 24 August.

On 11 September 1914 the A. N. & M. E. F. landed at New Britain and hoisted the British Flag at Rabaul the following day. By 17 September the terms of capitulation of German New Guinea had been signed and four days later the German and native forces surrendered at Herbertshöhe. On 24 September the A. N. & M. E. F. occupied Madang.

On 11 October the A. N. & M. E. F. captured the German naval yacht Komet and then occupied New Ireland on 17 October; Nauru on 6 November; The Admiralty and Western Islands on 19 November; and the German Solomon Islands on 9 December 1914. Early in January 1915, the A. N. & M. E. F. left New Guinea and Albert was discharged on the 18 January after serving 154 days, his term of enlistment having expired.

Albert then enlisted in the AIF at Claremont in Tasmania on 8 March 1915. He was assigned to the Australian Army Medical Corps, C Section, 7th Field Ambulance, Private, No. 3766. He embarked at Brisbane aboard the Aeneas on 29 June and reported for duty from Suez on 4 August 1915. He left for Gallipoli on 4 September and served there until 5 November when he was admitted to the 16th Casualty Clearing Station with jaundice. He was evacuated to Mudros the next day, then transferred to hospital at Malta on 12 November where he was treated for enteric fever. On 7 January 1916, he left for Egypt where he was admitted to the 2nd Auxiliary Convalescent Depot at Heliopolis with paratyphoid on 11 January.

On 28 January 1916 Albert embarked at Suez ‘for three months change’ in Australia and was admitted to the Hobart General Hospital on 10 March. On the voyage home he also had an operation for appendicitis. From 28 March to 29 June he was treated for enteric fever. With general debility and rheumatism he was finally discharged medically unfit from the AIF on 14 August 1916 and granted a war pension of £1.10.0 per fortnight from 29 August 1916.

Albert was army area officer in Hobart during 1917 and at Zeehan in 1919-20 and when he left the army he had reached the rank of Lieutenant. In January 1921 he married Elsie Young at Hobart. He worked in the drafting office of the Electrolytic Zinc Company at Risdon for nine years, then for the Agricultural Bank and Farmers’ Debt Adjustment Board. Shortly before his death at the Hobart Repatriation Hospital on 9 March 1939, aged 51, he had been appointed Council Clerk at Richmond, near Hobart. He was cremated at Cornelian Bay. Albert was survived by his wife Elsie and a daughter Helen. He is commemorated in the Hobart Garden of Remembrance at Cornelian Bay.

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