MORRIS, Harry
Service Number: | 1422 |
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Enlisted: | 3 July 1915, Adelaide, SA |
Last Rank: | Private |
Last Unit: | 9th Light Horse Regiment |
Born: | Mount Gambier, South Australia, Australia, 25 August 1895 |
Home Town: | Mount Gambier, Mount Gambier, South Australia |
Schooling: | Mount Gambier High School |
Occupation: | Hairdresser |
Died: | Kingscote, South Australia, Australia, 2 July 1971, aged 75 years, cause of death not yet discovered |
Cemetery: |
Kingscote Cemetery (Kangaroo Island), S.A. Plot 74 |
Memorials: | Mount Gambier High School Great War Roll of Honor |
Biography contributed by Graeme Roulstone
1422 Harry MORRIS was born at Mount Gambier on 25 August 1895 and attended Mount Gambier Public School and Compton Downs Public School before being enrolled at Mount Gambier High School on 5 November 1908 by his father, David Morris, a labourer, of Bertha Street, Mount Gambier. He left the school on 31 December 1908.
He enlisted in July 1915 (19 hairdresser, single, Presbyterian) naming his mother, Mrs Emma Morris of Mount Gambier, as his next of kin, having previously been rejected as his chest measurement had apparently been too small, and embarked from Adelaide on the ‘Benalla’ in October 1915. He joined the 9th Light Horse in Egypt and was involved in the advance across the Sinai desert, the capture of the Turkish outpost at Maghdaba on 23 December 1916, the capture of Rafa on 9 January 1917, the two failed attacks on Gaza in March and April 1917, the capture of Beersheba on 31 October 1917, the subsequent advance on Jerusalem, and the Es Salt raid in May 1918, before suffering a bout of malaria in August. He left Egypt on the ‘Oxfordshire’ for return to Australia in July 1919, disembarked on 10 August, and was discharged from the AIF in October 1919.