BRIDGE, Arthur
| Service Number: | 41 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 15 August 1915, 4th RAFA 4 years |
| Last Rank: | Lance Corporal |
| Last Unit: | 31st Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Derby, England, May 1890 |
| Home Town: | Brisbane, Brisbane, Queensland |
| Schooling: | Not yet discovered |
| Occupation: | Fitter (Qld Railways) |
| Died: | Killed in Action, France, 29 September 1918 |
| Cemetery: |
No known grave - "Known Unto God" Australian National Memorial, Villers-Bretonneux, France, Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, Villers-Bretonneux, Picardie, France |
| Memorials: | Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Villers-Bretonneux Memorial (Australian National Memorial - France) |
World War 1 Service
| 15 Aug 1915: | Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 41, 31st Infantry Battalion, 4th RAFA 4 years | |
|---|---|---|
| 9 Nov 1915: | Involvement Private, 41, 31st Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '16' embarkation_place: Melbourne embarkation_ship: HMAT Wandilla embarkation_ship_number: A62 public_note: '' | |
| 9 Nov 1915: | Embarked Private, 41, 31st Infantry Battalion, HMAT Wandilla, Melbourne | |
| 20 Jul 1916: | Wounded AIF WW1, Private, 41, 31st Infantry Battalion, Fromelles (Fleurbaix), SW multiple | |
| 11 Jan 1917: | Promoted AIF WW1, Lance Corporal, 31st Infantry Battalion | |
| 11 Jan 1917: | Promoted AIF WW1, Lance Corporal, 31st Infantry Battalion | |
| 29 Sep 1918: | Involvement Lance Corporal, 41, 31st Infantry Battalion, --- :awm_ww1_roll_of_honour_import: awm_service_number: 41 awm_unit: 31st Australian Infantry Battalion awm_rank: Lance Corporal awm_died_date: 1918-09-29 |
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Add my storyBiography contributed by Evan Evans
From Australian Military History, Kieran McCarthy
“Forget Me Not” - Men of the 31st Battalion Part 2
L/Cpl Arthur Bridge was born in Derby UK in 1890 and worked as a fitter with the Midlands Railway for five years before migrating to Australia and working for Qld Railways. He had also done three years part-time soldiering in England with a Territorial unit, the Derbyshire Yeomanry, when he enlisted in October 1915 in Brisbane, leaving his last Will and Testament with a Mr & Mrs Henton of Given Tce, Paddington Q.
Arthur made other impressions in his relatively short time in Melbourne, as the Qld companies of the 31st transited through Broadmeadows Camp before embarkation. A Miss Bertha Durham, of Essendon Vic., a member of the Lonely Soldiers League, undertook to write to Arthur during his service. Bertha was one of many thousands of women in kindred societies all over the Empire who wrote to their adopted servicemen as a means of keeping up their morale and providing some diversion from the privations of life at the Front.
Like Pvt Patrick Kelly of Great George St Paddington Q, Arthur was wounded at Fromelles on 19.7.16 with multiple shrapnel and gunshot wounds. Unlike Kelly and his mate McCormack, also of Given Tce, Arthur’s convalescence in Birmingham UK -close to his parents in Derby- was uneventful and he returned to his unit in November 1916, a month before an anxious Miss Durham had written to Base Records in Melbourne enquiring as to his health, having seen his name in the casualty lists.
While he was fortunate to survive the AIF’s first major engagement on the Western Front, Arthur Bridge did not survive one of the last, as the Australians broke through the Hindenburg Line near Bellicourt. L/Cpl Bridge was reported buried “600 yds SSE of Nauroy, near Wiancourt”, but his body was never recovered. He is remembered here in Ithaca, and on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial.
Miss Bridges did not forget her “Lonely Soldier”. She wrote to Base Records in February 1919 and persuaded the authorities to put her in touch with Arthur’s parents in Derby. What comfort might they have derived from shared memories of a young man whom the fortunes of war had denied a grave ?
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