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Son of Arthur PRICE and Emily Cairns nee WATSON

Discharged in London 13 October 1919

Subsequent to discharge married Marie Germaine LAMENDIN, spinster, aged 18, at Townhall, Level-Claudeville, Belgium, 14 May 1919.

Price's father reported in 1929 that the family was now in 'straitened circumstances', and requested an assisted passage to Australia for the family (wife and one son); no further details on file.

The Mail (Adelaide) Saturday 18 October, 1941, p3.
Ex-Digger Tells Story of Escape From Belgium
"The Mail" Special Service
London, Saturday - A remarkable story is told by Leslie Price, an ex-digger who has lived in Belgium since the last war, and who landed in England this week after an adventurous escape through France and Spain.
Price relates that he came from Sydney and as a youth fought in the last war in the 54th Battalion. After the war he married a Belgian woman (who died in 1930) and became a successful dairy farmer in Belgium. In the early hours of May 10 1940, German bombs fell on his property, wrecking his home and destroying his cattle.
Price and his two sons, aged respectively 21 and 16, joined the thousands of refugees making for France.
Assisted by a Belgian on May 15 he strangled two German parachutists dressed as priests as they rolled over after landing.
The refugees were bombed mercilessly at Cambrai and then caught be the Panzer troops.
The Germans saw Price's identification papers and sent father and sons to St Quentin prison camp, from which the sons escaped to France after three weeks. Price also escaped but was unable to pass the German lines to France, so he returned to Belgium and became a saboteur.
Became a Wrecker
Sabotaging behind the German lines was much more dangerous than the last war's trench fighting he told an interviewer. For nine months he and many Belgian ex-soldiers pinpricked the Germans.
"In the daytime, dressed as peasants, we spied out things to wreck after dark. We cut telephone wires, knifed sentries, holed the drums in petrol dumps, stole breech blocks from the guns and bolts from rifles, and blew up rails with jam-tin bombs.
"In addition we assisted many British soldiers to escape to France.
"My sons rejoined me and became expert guerillas. The Germans were always hunting us.
"Finally I became tired and decided last March to escape, but my boys refused to leave Belgium. I walked through France to Marseilles. This was not difficult because the Germans were now mainly guarding the coastline.
Sent to Prison
"I reached Marseilles on April 1 and saw the United States Consul, who refused to assist me, declaring I was not British.
"This is understandable because I had not spoken English for 22 years. I headed for Spain but was caught by the French police and sent to St Hippolite prison camp, where 400 half-starving British soldiers were living a dog's life.
"The French police were infinitely more brutal than the German soldiers. I escaped and again reached to Spanish border. I fell badly climbing the Pyrenees and was forced to lie up for a few weeks.
"My third attempt was successful on June 14 but the Spanish police caught me and I was thrown into Saragossa Prison, which is one of the black holes of Europe.
"Dozens of French, Czech, English and Belgian soldiers who daringly escaped from France, are there living like rats. There are 16 men in each tiny cell, which is so filthily hot that prisoners live there stark naked.
Worked on Roads
"I was later move to Miranda concentration camp where I became a forced labourer, working nine to 10 hours a day at road making under a grilling sun with Spanish soldiers punishing with their rifle butts the slightest attempt at lead swinging. Rations were a pint of beans and a half pint of weak coffee a day.
"I was a mere skeleton when British authorities two months later effected the release of Britons and sent us to Gibraltar where I put on two stone in weight.
"I landed in England on October 14 for the first time since 1919 and hope to take up farming. My sons are still saboteurs in Belgium, operating under false names.
"I am worried on their account,. They are big, strong typical Aussies. I will take them to Australia after the war."
Price, who is powerfully built, lively and dark haired, now uses his hands, scarred from roadmaking, in Continental gesturing.