Reuben PARRY

PARRY, Reuben

Service Number: 1211
Enlisted: 12 July 1915
Last Rank: Private
Last Unit: 29th Infantry Battalion
Born: Heathcote, Victoria, Australia, 1893
Home Town: Brunswick, Moreland, Victoria
Schooling: Not yet discovered
Occupation: Labourer
Memorials: Ballarat Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial
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World War 1 Service

12 Jul 1915: Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 1211, 29th Infantry Battalion
10 Nov 1915: Involvement Private, 1211, 29th Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '16' embarkation_place: Melbourne embarkation_ship: HMAT Ascanius embarkation_ship_number: A11 public_note: ''
10 Nov 1915: Embarked Private, 1211, 29th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Ascanius, Melbourne

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Biography contributed by Stephen Brooks

Reuben Parry, 29th Battalion AIF, was captured on the night of 19 July 1916 at Fleurbaix (Fromelles). According to correspondence with the Australian Red Cross Pte Parry reported that during the battle he met up with his brother 320 Private Frederick Parry, of the same unit, close to the German line. They decided that the severely wounded Frederick should try to return to the Allied trenches and that Reuben would stay with the survivors of the battalion and try to carry on. However he was captured shortly after and Frederick was never seen again. Later that year Frederick's family learned via the Red Cross that the Germans had recovered his body and had given him a Christian burial. In 2010 Frederick's remains were recovered from an unmarked mass grave and formally identified by the Fromelles Joint Identification Board and were then reburied at the new Commonwealth War Cemetery at Pheasant Wood. Pte Reuben Parry survived the war and was released in November 1918.

Their father, a 53 year old 14827 Sergeant George John Parry, a railway employee from Brunswick, Victoria enlisted barely a month after two of his sons went missing during the battle of Fromelles and served until 1920.

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