FORBES, Norman McLennan
| Service Number: | 904 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | Not yet discovered |
| Last Rank: | Bombardier |
| Last Unit: | 4th Australian Field Artillery Battery |
| Born: | Colac, Victoria, Australia, 1891 |
| Home Town: | Colac, Colac-Otway, Victoria |
| Schooling: | Colac State and Grammar Schools, Victoria, Australia |
| Occupation: | Clerk |
| Died: | Killed in Action, France, 8 April 1917 |
| Cemetery: |
Favreuil British Cemetery |
| Memorials: | Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Colac Soldier's Memorial, Colac St Andrew's Presbyterian Church Honor Roll |
World War 1 Service
| 20 Oct 1914: | Involvement Gunner, 904, 2nd Field Artillery Brigade , --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '3' embarkation_place: Melbourne embarkation_ship: HMAT Shropshire embarkation_ship_number: A9 public_note: '' | |
|---|---|---|
| 20 Oct 1914: | Embarked Gunner, 904, 2nd Field Artillery Brigade , HMAT Shropshire, Melbourne | |
| 8 Apr 1917: | Involvement Bombardier, 904, 4th Australian Field Artillery Battery, --- :awm_ww1_roll_of_honour_import: awm_service_number: 904 awm_unit: 4th Australian Field Artillery Battery awm_rank: Bombardier awm_died_date: 1917-04-08 |
Help us honour Norman McLennan Forbes's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.
Add my storyBiography contributed by Rod Hutchings
A German shell finds the steel of the gun at Bapaume. Norman McLennan Forbes does not hear it.
He was 26 years old, a Bombardier with the 4th Battery of the 2nd Field Artillery Brigade. Before the war, he was a clerk from Colac and a footballer for Hawthorn. He was a man of five feet and five inches who played seven games in the 1908 season. He was the younger brother of the champion athlete Ivan "Tracker" Forbes, but Norman had his own reputation on the tennis courts and cricket pitches of Melbourne.
He was one of the first to go. He enlisted on 19/08/1914 and was at sea by October on the HMAT Shropshire. He landed at Anzac Cove on 25/04/1915. In July, he wrote home to Colac about the reality of the 500-foot ridges. He told his family that the bullets made a man duck, and that life was a constant rotation of pick and shovel work to keep the gun pits deep and the crews safe.
The war lasted longer than his health could hold. After surviving the Gallipoli evacuation, he was promoted to Bombardier and sent to France. By November 1916, the constant enemy fire and the strain of the front resulted in a diagnosis of shell shock. He spent weeks in the 9th Australian General Hospital. He returned to his battery for the coldest winter on record, living in the frozen mud near Bapaume.
On Easter Sunday, 08/04/1917, the German artillery scored a direct hit on his gun. The report in the Winner stated he was struck in the head and killed instantly.
The Hawthorn Football Club records for those early years are incomplete. No photograph of Norman Forbes survives in the club’s archive. He remains a name on a list of those who made the sacrifice, buried now at Favreuil British Cemetery in France.
Lest we forget.
Rod Hutchings
Director, Virtual War Memorial Australia