LAKE, Leslie Clive
| Service Number: | 5733 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | Not yet discovered |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | 1st Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Mittagong, New South Wales, Australia, 9 August 1898 |
| Home Town: | Nowra, Shoalhaven Shire, New South Wales |
| Schooling: | Not yet discovered |
| Occupation: | Railway Porter |
| Died: | Killed in Action, France, 5 November 1916, aged 18 years |
| Cemetery: |
Grevillers British Cemetery |
| Memorials: | Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Haymarket NSW Government Railway and Tramway Honour Board, Nowra - All Saints War Memorial Lych Gate, Nowra Soldiers Memorial |
World War 1 Service
| 3 Jun 1916: | Involvement Private, 5733, 1st Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '7' embarkation_place: Sydney embarkation_ship: HMAT Kyarra embarkation_ship_number: A55 public_note: '' | |
|---|---|---|
| 3 Jun 1916: | Embarked Private, 5733, 1st Infantry Battalion, HMAT Kyarra, Sydney |
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Add my storyBiography contributed by John Oakes
Leslie Clive LAKE, (Serial Number 5733) was born in Mittagong on 9th August 1898. His home was at Numba, where his father was teacher at the Public School. He joined the NSW Government Railways as a junior porter in the Sydney District in November 1913.
In December 1915 he was granted leave to enlist in the AIF, which he had done (with his father’s permission because he was only 18) the previous month. He joined the route march of the ‘Waratahs’ to Nowra, where they enlisted. The ‘Waratahs’ were farewelled at an enthusiastic meeting of over a thousand people in Nowra in March 1916 while they were at home on final leave before proceeding overseas.
He embarked from Sydney in June 1916. His was one of the first transport ships to go via the Cape of Good Hope to England. He landed there in August. A long letter to his parents describing the voyage and his experiences in England was published in the Nowra Leader of 13 October 1916.
By September 1916 he had been sent to France and joined the 1st Battalion ‘in the field’ on 24th September. He was reported missing in action on 5th November 1916. A year later a Court of Enquiry determined that he must have been killed on that day. Red Cross enquiries indicated that he had been killed at Flers and his body found months later, in February 1917. He was buried where he fell.
In 1922 a letter from the authorities in London to base records in Melbourne advised that Lake and another soldier named McDermott were originally believed to have been buried at a map reference ‘with other soldiers who are now interred in Grevillers British Cemetery. Several “unknowns” were exhumed at the same spot.
In the circumstances, the Imperial War Graves Commission, London, authorised the erection of a Special Cross in Grevillers British Cemetery for the two soldiers named above. That cross bears the regimental particulars of the soldiers concerned. Thy are preceded by the words “Believed to be buried in this Cemetery, actual grave unknown”.’
- based on the Australian War Memorial Honour Roll and notes for the Great Sydney Central Station Honour Board.