Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Supplied by Harry Willey and posted on the Australia & New Zealand in WWI group

Was another who went through the fighting only to die of disease after he had witnessed the Turks Surrendering to the Australians a week before Armistice Day.

# 104 L/Cpl Roy De Alevion,
1st Light Horse Brigade.
A Squadron. 1st Light Horse Regiment.

1st Light Horse Brigade
1st Light Horse Regiment.
Machine Gun Squadron,

Lance Corporal Roy Francis De Alevion was 25 years and 5 months of age when he died at the 47th Stationary Hospital at Gaza in Syria on 5 November 1918. His untimely death from malignant malaria occurred within a week of the end of the war.
Born in 1892 Roy was the youngest son of Herbert Frederick De Alevion and his wife Agnes Eliza (Wharton), of Gundy. Following his education at a public school, he worked as a labourer. As required by the Defence Act of 1911, he trained with the Scone squadron of the 6th light horse, a militia regiment. Roy’s attestation papers describe him as being 22 years and eight months of age, with a dark complexion and brown eyes and hair. He was 5 feet, 9 inches (172cm) tall and weighed 10 stone (64kg). His religious denomination was Church of England.
On Saturday 22 August 1914, Roy was one of the twenty-two volunteers selected from the serving members of the 6th light horse who boarded the first troop train from the north taking volunteers to Sydney. On the preceding Thursday night these men had been joined at the Scone skating rink by 400 residents of the district for a farewell party held in their honour.
Arriving in Sydney, the volunteers were taken to Rosebery Park Where the 1st Light Horse Regiment of the AIF was being formed by Major George M Macarthur-Onslow who had been appointed Commander. Ill health almost immediately forced Macarthur-Onslow to relinquish command to Major H V Vernon of the 7th Light Horse, the “New South Wales Lancers”. Roy was assigned to A Squadron of the 1st LHR, which he found to be ill-equipped and short of saddles and stirrup irons.
On 25 September an advance party of Officers and men of the 1st Light Horse Regiment left Sydney on HMAT A6 Clan Maccorquodale. Roy embarked at Woolloomooloo on the 19 October on the HMAT A16 Star of Victoria, believing he was sailing the next day, for England.
Ordered to disembark at Alexandria, the 1st LHR trained at Mena in Egypt with the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade. Roy found the training constant and strenuous, but due to the kindness of the local British residents, he enjoyed a very Merry Christmas.
On 30 January his regiment moved North West of Cairo to Heliopolis; it was here that the Rev’d Ernest Merrington was attached to the regiment as Church of England Chaplain. The 1st LHR suffered their first casualty on 10 April 1915 when Lance Corporal Walter Delwyn Perkins, a former stock and station agent from Glen Innes, died from pneumonia. Apart from Perkins’s death, the health of the men was reported to be excellent.
When the decision was made to invade Gallipoli the light horse regiments, thought to be unsuitable for fighting on the peninsular, stayed in Egypt. When the casualties on Gallipoli proved much higher than expected, volunteers were sought from the 1st LHR to go to Gallipoli unmounted as infantrymen under the command of Major Vernon. Roy and Stan Thurlow from Scone were among the first selected from the 1st LHR and embarked from Alexandria on the troopship SS Devanha at 7.30pm 9 May 1915.
Roy landed on Gallipoli 2,000 yards south of the Fisherman’s Hut at Anzac Cove at 6am on 12 May. Before dawn the following morning the men of the 1st LHR occupied the trenches at Pope’s Hill. They had their first real taste of battle when attacked by hundreds of Turks at 3.50am on 19 May. At least a hundred Turks entered their trenches and engaged in fierce hand to hand fighting before they were driven off. The 1st LHR suffered 28 casualties during this attack and a further 43 as the result of continued sniping by the Turks during the following week.
On 24 May all firing ceased on Gallipoli when a truce was declared from 7.30 am till 4.45 pm to allow both sides to bury their dead. The Australian’s sent only their biggest men into no-man’s-land to mix with the Turks and any Turkish rifle they found had it’s bolt removed before it was returned to the Turks. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a Turkish Officer, worked all day as a stretcher bearer observing the Australian’s position.
The Turks again attacked Pope’s Hill on 29 May, killing two and wounding a further 15 members of the 1st LHR. During the month of June, due to a combination of the intense heat and a shortage of ammunition, a lull occurred in the fighting and a degree of fraternisation occurred between the two sides, much to the dismay of the British Officers. When Turkish soldiers ran out of cigarette papers, they approached the Australians waving a white flag and arranged the exchange of Turkish tobacco for Australian cigarette papers. They also exchanged items of food.
Still wearing the same clothes they landed in five weeks earlier and restricted to half a pint of water each per day, The light horsemen became openly aggressive to the well washed and clean shaven immaculately dressed British staff officers who walked around asking what they considered were silly questions. The light horsemen were surviving on a piece of bacon and hard biscuits for breakfast, either water or a cup of tea at midday with bully beef stew for their evening meal.
While the French, were well supplied with food, and the British, had meat, fresh bread and ample water. The Australians were suffering from Dysentery, Typhoid, Paratyphoid, Jaundice and influenza. Their officers, who attributed this to their diet, sought better rations for their men, only to be told by the British that the Australians rations were adequate.
The Australian director of medical services believed the Australian Government had failed by not demanding autonomy over their forces, as Canada had done.
Plans were made by the British for the 1st LHR to attack the Turkish trenches at 4.30am on the morning of 7 August. This attack and others at Lone Pine and the Nek were to co-inside with the attack by the New Zealanders at Chunuk Bair. It was hoped the action by the Australians would stop the Turks reinforcing their troops at Chunuk Bair.
Fresh reinforcements from the 1st LHR in Egypt arrived on the 6th August. Following an attack on Lone Pine by the 1st Infantry Battalion the 1st LHR attacked a Turkish-held position known as Dead Man’s Ridge, while the 8th and 10th LHR attacked at the Nek.
The active strength of the 1st LHR was reduced from 198 to 53 with only 42 fit for duty after the battle. The casualty rate of 76% was the highest suffered by any Australian Regiment on Gallipoli. The following day the surviving members of the 1st LHR provided covering fire for the 1st Australian Infantry Battalion as they defended Lone Pine.
Roy survived this battle physically unscathed and remained on Gallipoli until late in October when half of the Australians casualties were the result of sickness and disease. Roy was evacuated to the 3rd Australian General Hospital, situated on the shore of Mudros Bay, Lemnos Island with influenza then rejoining the 1st LHR in Egypt he suffered from what was at first thought to be enteric fever and was admitted in January to 1st AGH in Heliopolis, Cairo. When he failed to improve, Doctors discovered that in fact he was suffering from paratyphoid and had been for the previous seven weeks. Placed on board HT Nestor on 9 February, Roy was returned to Australia. Upon arrival in Melbourne he transferred to A.H.S. Kanowna for the voyage to Sydney where he disembarked on 17 March.
Admitted to the No 4 AGH in Sydney, it was nine weeks before he could return to his home to Gundy. Two weeks later, he declared himself fit and reported for duty at Menangle Park on 13 June 1916. Accepted into the 19th reinforcements for the 1st LHR he embarked from Sydney on board the Royal Mail Steamer (RMS) Mongolia on 18 July 1916.
Roy trained with the reinforcements at Moascar in Egypt for three weeks before he was assigned to the Machine Gun Squadron of the 1st LHB at Romani, as a corporal. He soon discovered that the conditions experienced fighting in the Sinai and Palestine were very different from what he had experienced at Gallipoli. He experienced intense heat during the day with freezing temperatures at night while being continually buffeted by sandstorms. The only similarity with Gallipoli was the ongoing shortage of water for both men and horses.
Roy voluntarily reverted to the rank of Trooper on 18 January 1917, while fighting with the 1st Australian Machine Gun Squadron at El Arish. The 1st LH spent a month at Bayoud before they moved to attack Khan Yunis. Here, they were lucky to escape unscathed from an air attack as they easily captured the enemy position. While holding this position, they were harassed by enemy planes until they mounted their Hotchkiss guns on sandbags and used them against the attacking aircraft. Relieved on 16 April, the squadron marched through the night to Shellal, where they were again bombed by enemy aircraft.
At 8.30pm on 18 April the regiment crossed the dry Wady Ghuzze a big water course which divides the country, and joined the rest of the division for the second attack on the town of Gaza, the next day. During this unsuccessful three day battle, they attacked the rail line that supplied Beersheba. While doing so Roy suffered multiple gunshot wounds to his left arm and shoulder.
After a month in hospital, Roy rejoined his unit now at Moascar. On 28 May the 1st LH moved to Kazar and set up camp. Roy was then sent to a School of Instruction at Zeitoun on 9 June for three weeks, then moving to the 27th Machine Gun Instruction School, before he returned to his unit, at Ghamli. On 28 July the regiment took over the strong post at Ghabi from the 6th LH, two weeks later Roy left with the machine gun squadron for Ge Naam.
A draw from a hat resulted in Roy spending two weeks in an Anzac rest camp in September. Rejoining his unit and again promoted, he participated in the attack on Beersheba on 31 October.
With Beersheba now in allied hands, it was clear to both the commanders in the field and the politicians in London that the final days of 400 years of Turkish rule in Palestine were near.
On 15 December Roy attended further training at the School of Instruction at Zeitoun before returning to the Machine Gun Instruction School. Graduating as a 1st class Vickers Gunner he rejoined his regiment at Esdud only to be granted a further rest period at Moascar.
Still not well, he spent a further two weeks in the 14th AGH in Palestine, before he was returned to the rest camp on 28 April 1918, suffering with scabies. The 1st LH then moved to Solomon’s Pool near Bethlehem on 15 June where the health of all the men deteriorated rapidly. A large number of officers and men suffering from either Spanish Flu or malaria. On 7 July, Roy was again admitted to hospital and during his two months convalescence, he witnessed the deaths of many of his mates from malaria.
Back in action for the final offensive in the Syrian campaign, Roy was at the fall of Damascus. On 30 September the 6th light horse secured a position overlooking the Barada Gorge. The enemy troops were hoping to escape by this route in trucks and trains which had machine guns mounted on their roof. When they refused to surrender, the 1st Light Horse was ordered by Major Oliver Hogue to open fire. Never before had their Hotchkiss guns and rifles found such a target, the firing, which continued through the night, killed seven thousand Turks and Germans. At 6.30am the following morning the 1st October 1918 the Australians rode into Damascus where Major Olden received the surrender of the Turks from the newly installed Governor Emir Said, two hours before Lawrence of Arabia arrived in the town. The 1st Light Horse then continued parading through the streets that were lined with cheering people.
Most of the population of Damascus had been suffering from the flu for some time before the Australians arrived. Within days this spread to the Australians, resulting in the death of many of the light horsemen who had landed at Gallipoli in May 1915 and been involved in the fighting since.
Within a week, Roy was admitted to hospital where he died two weeks later of malignant malaria. He was buried the same day by Chaplain W. H. Mc Caldwell in the Gaza War Cemetery, Palestine. XIX. G. 3.
Roy’s will bequeathed his property to his mother with the provision that, if she pre-deceased him, his property was to be shared equally between his brother, Rupert, a drover from Oxford St, Scone, and his sister Mrs Blanche Mary Isabell Keene, of Gundy.
His service medals: the 1914/15 Star # 5614, the British War Medal # 3550, and the Allied Victory Medal # 3550 were issued to his mother with his Memorial Plaque and Scroll.
The Gaza War Cemetery in Palestine has been immaculately maintained by three generations of the one family. It was desecrated by Palestinians angry at the treatment of Iraqi prisoners of war by American and British soldiers in May 2004. Fortunately the grave of Roy de Alevion, the only World War One digger from this area to be buried in this cemetery, remains undamaged.
On Anzac day 2005, the Australian Embassy’s Charge d’affairs, B Nelson, was present at a Anzac Day ceremony arranged by the Jewish community.

Roy’s name appears on,

Memorial Panel 180
The Australian War Memorial, Canberra.

The Memorial outside the Scone War Memorial Swimming Pool.

The Roll of Honour at the Scott Memorial Hospital, Scone.

The Honour Roll at the Scone RSL Club.