PARSONAGE, Bertie Drury
| Service Number: | 3589 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | Not yet discovered |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | 2nd Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Ryde, New South Wales, Australia, 24 April 1899 |
| Home Town: | Ryde, Ryde, New South Wales |
| Schooling: | Not yet discovered |
| Occupation: | Railway Storeman |
| Died: | Killed in Action, Belgium, 1 November 1917, aged 18 years |
| Cemetery: |
Ypres Reservoir Cemetery Plot I. Row I. Grave 69. |
| Memorials: | Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Haymarket Men of the Railways & Tramways Store Branch Roll of Valour, Haymarket NSW Government Railway and Tramway Honour Board, Ryde Public School Roll of Honour |
World War 1 Service
| 12 Dec 1915: | Involvement Private, 3589, 19th Infantry Battalion, Third Ypres, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '13' embarkation_place: Sydney embarkation_ship: HMAT Berrima embarkation_ship_number: A35 public_note: '' | |
|---|---|---|
| 12 Dec 1915: | Embarked Private, 3589, 19th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Berrima, Sydney | |
| 1 Nov 1917: | Involvement Private, 3589, 2nd Infantry Battalion, Third Ypres, --- :awm_ww1_roll_of_honour_import: awm_service_number: 3589 awm_unit: 2 Battalion awm_rank: Private awm_died_date: 1917-11-01 |
Help us honour Bertie Drury Parsonage's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.
Add my storyBiography contributed by Sandra Barry
Bertie was the son of Edward W. and M. A. Parsonage, of Church St., Ryde, New South Wales.
Biography contributed by John Oakes
Bertie Drury PARSONAGE (Service Number 3589) was born in Ryde on 24th April 1899. He joined the NSW Government Railways as a shop boy in the Stores Department at Eveleigh in May 1915. In October 1915, stating his ‘trade or calling’ as ‘Railway Storeman’, he enlisted in the AIF at Holdsworthy. He was aged only 16½ but raised his age to just over 18 years to enlist. He had learned to play the bugle in the Militia and was one of the ‘boy-buglers’ of the AIF (recently the subject of a study by Graeme Hosken in Digger, December 2017, https://membersfffaif.com/wp-content/uploads/DIGGER/digger-61-dec-2017.pdf).
He was initially allotted to the 8th Reinforcements of the 19th Battalion. He embarked from Sydney for the Middle East in December 1915. In Egypt in February 1916 he was reallocated to the 2nd Battalion and sent with them to France in March. He had a week in hospital with dental trouble at the end of 1916 before being sent in February to the Divisional School. In May he spent a week at the 1st Anzac Corps School, before being sent to hospital with venereal disease, for which he was treated for 47 days.
On 4th August he re-joined his Battalion but had a fortnight’s leave in England at the end of August and beginning of September. On 24th October he was moved to the Divisional Reserve Camp. On 30th October he was quartered in the Belgian Barracks in Ypres.
On 1st November he was killed in action. The story was told by an officer in the 2nd Battalion history, Nulli Secundus:
‘On the tangled mass of debris, which was once the barrack square of the Belgian Barracks, we had a gas guard on duty each night. The drummers and buglers, scouts and signallers, with other headquarters details, were lodged in a cellar below the square. During the night of November 1, young Parsonage lay sleeping in a corner of that cellar… Next morning that cellar was a shambles. A high velocity shell had fallen into the square in the darkness of the early morning, killing the… guard, and penetrating to the quarters where the bandsmen were sleeping. Among the dead was Parsonage… The whole battalion felt the shock of that boy’s death…’
He was buried in the Ypres Reservoir North Cemetery. A war pension was granted to his mother.
- based on the Australian War Memorial Honour Roll and notes for the Great Sydney Central Station Honour Board.
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