Rupert James SPARROW

Rupert James SPARROW Update Details

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SPARROW, Rupert James

Service Number:	103
Enlisted:	26 August 1914
Last Rank:	Private
Last Unit:	11th Infantry Battalion
Born:	Cunninghame, Victoria, Australia, 1893
Home Town:	Broken Hill, Broken Hill Municipality, New South Wales
Schooling:	Cunninghame, Victoria, Australia
Occupation:	Horse Driver
Died:	Killed in Action, Gallipoli, Dardanelles, Turkey, 25 April 1915
Cemetery:	No known grave - "Known Unto God" Lone Pine Memorial, Gallipoli Peninsula, Canakkale Province, Turkey Panel 34
Memorials:	Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Broken Hill War Memorial, Geraldton Gallipoli Roll of Honour, Lone Pine Memorial to the Missing, Tambellup War Memorial

World War 1 Service

26 Aug 1914:	Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 103, 11th Infantry Battalion
2 Nov 1914:	Involvement Private, 103, 11th Infantry Battalion, ANZAC / Gallipoli, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '10' embarkation_place: Fremantle embarkation_ship: HMAT Ascanius embarkation_ship_number: A11 public_note: ''
2 Nov 1914:	Embarked Private, 103, 11th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Ascanius, Fremantle

Help us honour Rupert James Sparrow's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.

Biography contributed by Lori Medlin

Rupert was born at Cunninghame in 1893, son of William and Antje Sparrow, and had started his early school there before the family moved to Broken Hill where his mother died in 1909. As a sole parent William, moved the six children to Western Australia.

Rupert became a horse driver and when he was 22 years old, he was the first son to enlist on 26 August 1914 with the 11th Battalion. His older brother Frederick enlisted a couple of weeks later and joined him at the Helena Vale Camp in Western Australia. On 2 November Rupert embarked on the Ascanius and joined the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force at Gallipoli to participate in the landing. He was reported missing on 25 April. One week later his brother Frederick would also be reported missing.

It would be twelve months before Private Oden from New Zealand would state at a court of enquiry that 'on April 25 at Gallipoli on the day of the landing several men of his company whose names he cannot remember, said they had seen Sparrow hit whilst advancing. During the retirement one of them saw him lying dead with a wound in the head, he turned the body over and identified it as being that of Sparrow.'

Rupert’s body was not recovered, and he is remembered at the Lone Pine memorial.

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