Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

'Doug' Leslie was born on 13 January 1891 at 'Mayfield', a fine old home in Brisbane's riverside suburb of Hamilton. He was the sixth of a family of seven children. Unlike his elder brothers who'd won scholarships to the Brisbane Grammar School, he was educated locally at the Corinda State School. His father could not afford private school fees because of failed business ventures.

He was not of large stature but, judging by photographs, was rather finely made with a clean-cut handsome face. According to his mother-in-law, Mrs Iliff, he was a keen sport, fond of rowing and tennis (as all the Leslies were). He seems to have excelled in rowing. In May 1914 he was at the bow of the Qld eight in the Australian Rowing Championship held at Murray Bridge in Victoria. He was undoubtedly a favourite of his sister-in-law Eda Leslie whose son bears his name and who, in her dotage, often confused the two. He, as all the Leslie boys, was remembered down the years as though the years were only days and their deaths yesterday. The walls of the Toowoomba household were hung with their pictures and in the shaded airy rooms where their names were so often spoken it was possible to believe them present.

If not the bright spark that his brothers were, Doug was perhaps recalled with greatest affection. He became an insurance clerk (Commercial Union Assurance Company Ltd) when he left school and was still in that employment when he enlisted in the AIF in 1915. He was also newly wed. On 21 March 1914 he had married Barbara Clare Brand the daughter of a Scottish immigrant with whom he also shared a birth date. Eighteen months later he followed his brothers Arthur and Walter into the army, but not into the artillery. Unlike his brothers, Doug appears to have had no prior Cadet or Militia service so it seems most likely that his enlistment on 3 July 1915 was spurred by Walter's death at Gallipoli on 6th May.

Doug must have been a capable organizer and natural leader for he was quickly promoted after his enlistment, acting for 11 weeks as Company Sergeant Major of B Coy., 3rd Depot Battalion. On 29 October 1915 he was appointed to the 7th Reinforcements 26th Infantry Battalion and on 11 November 1915, just prior to embarkation, gazetted 2nd Lieutenant. On 12 August 1916 while 'in the field' in France he was commissioned Lieutenant.

There is a photograph of Doug on the bridge of the "Itonus" taken on the day of embarkation on 30 December 1915. His face is hardly distinguishable, just a pinprick really pinpointed by the faded caption, one distant face looking down from a jubilant crowd as the ship leaves Pinkenba dock. He isn't raising his cap, he doesn't swing from the ship's rigging or hang precariously over the side. This is his last sight of home. He'll be 25 in January and he has barely a year to live.

The "Itonus" arrived at Ismailia on Tuesday 14 March 1916 where the 7th Reinforcements were 'taken on strength' of the 26th Battalion. Their glimpse of the exotic east was fleeting for, unlike earlier arrivals, there was to be no desert training and no prolonged leave. It was to be a precipitate journey to France and the Western Front. On 15 March the Battalion embarked from Alexandria and proceeded to join the B.E.F. It disembarked at Marseilles a week later on Tuesday 21 March.

It is difficult to track a soldier's movements - or indeed a battalion's whereabouts - via the clipped notations of a military service dossier. It is impossible to be acquainted with him but by letters home and that illicit diary kept by so many in between the battles. We possess no letters written by Doug and only one letter of condolence, a very moving tribute, written by his cousin David Merson who was himself killed in action in 1918. There are occasional reunions recorded in Arthur Leslie's 1916 diary, but these are only brief and Arthur was a man of few words. Alas, if Doug ever kept a diary it was lost long ago along with most of the small treasures of his life. Three things, however, are certain. He was 8 months 'in the field' or thereabouts. He never made the great pilgrimage to England or to his father's native Aberdeenshire. He was brave in battle and considerate of the men he led for that his how he lost his life and how he was remembered by them.

This is the path he followed. On 8 April 1916 while still a 2nd Lieutenant he was temporarily attached to 7th Bde HQ, Rue Marle. Eleven days later on 19 April he was seconded for duty with a 2nd Division Trench Mortar battery his service of which won him a Mention in Despatches and perhaps his full Lieutenant's pips. Almost six months' later on 18 October he rejoined the 26th Battalion and less than a month after that was wounded in action at Pozieres on 5 November 1916. He died the same day - Guy Fawkes Day. It is worth mentioning that as a measure of the family's grief Guy Fawkes' night was not illuminated by fireworks at the Leslie home in Toowoomba for many years, a fact that was deeply lamented by some of the younger brood.

Doug was mortally wounded while saving another man's life in No Man's Land, shot in the abdomen by a German sniper. He was not alone. His cousin, David Merson, tended his wounds and helped carry him back across the open field to a dressing station about a mile away. The ordeal took an hour, such was the state of the mud, and he died on the way there. He was 25.

His mother was already in mourning black and now, too, his young wife. Barbara Leslie never remarried and maintained a close and fond relationship with her husband's family for the remainder of her sixty-one years. There were no children from the short-lived marriage.

Doug lies with 402 other Australians and almost 3,000 mostly British soldiers in the AIF Burial Ground, Grass Lane, Flers; so named because begun by Australian medical units in November 1916. His grave is near the entrance of the cemetery and in line with the Great Cross. In 1926 it was visited by his mother and sister Margaret. He has not been forgotten, this young man whom it is difficult to think of as old even 91 years after his death. While his portrait hangs on a family wall he will remain young, handsome, upright and a focus of reflection.