WILKINSON, Gabriel John
| Service Number: | 2905 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | Not yet discovered |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | 44th Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Melbourne. Victoria, Australia, date not yet discovered |
| Home Town: | Busselton, Western Australia |
| Schooling: | Not yet discovered |
| Occupation: | Farmer |
| Died: | Illness, Perth, Western Australia, 27 August 1976, age not yet discovered |
| Cemetery: |
Karrakatta Cemetery & Crematorium, Western Australia |
| Memorials: | Busselton Cenotaph Victoria Square, Busselton Rotary Park of Remembrance Memorial Walk |
World War 1 Service
| 29 Dec 1916: | Involvement Private, 2905, 44th Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '18' embarkation_place: Fremantle embarkation_ship: HMAT Persic embarkation_ship_number: A34 public_note: '' | |
|---|---|---|
| 29 Dec 1916: | Embarked Private, 2905, 44th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Persic, Fremantle |
Help us honour Gabriel John Wilkinson's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.
Add my storyBiography contributed by Joy Dalgleish
The South-Western News (Busselton: WA: 1903 -1954) Fri 20 Jun 1919, Page 3
By yesterday's train, Pte. Gabriel (better known perhaps as "Chop") Wilkinson, returned to Busselton after three years abroad. Pte. Wilkinson has reason to feel the seriousness of war, for he comes back well enough in body and in spirit, but disfigured facially in a shocking manner. On the 4th of July, in a stubborn battle at Hamel, he was attending a Lewis gun when the cap of a 6 inch shell carried away the whole of the lower portion of his face, leaving but four teeth and the ragged remains of an upper lip to show where the mouth and chin had been. So fiercely contested was the stunt that comrades could not assist him, neither could the stretcher bearers, and, with true Aussie grit, he set out to walk back to a dressing station, taking the risk of being I stopped by a bullet in the act.
When over a quarter of a mile was covered, he was taken in charge by a couple of Americans and conducted to safety. For months he was a patient at the Queen's Hospital, Sidcup, London, where there were being treated about 400 cases, almost all men with portions of their heads missing by skin and bone grafting operations, an Australian specialist, Lieut.-Colonel Surgeon Newlands, has succeeded in improving Pte. Wilkinson until he can now eat and ! speak fairly well, and the young soldier will shortly, proceed to Adelaide, there to undergo treatment for another 18 months at the hands of Lieut. Col. Newlands. Young Wilkinson speaks in glowing terms of the treatment accorded to the disfigured and maimed men by the medical men of the army, and is perfectly content to undergo as many more operations or courses of treatment as they may suggest. Mrs. F. Wilkinson met her son at Fremantle and accompanied him home.
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