Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

George Douglas Bryant was born 13th June, 1897 at "Athol" house in Hill End and by 1915 George and his mother "Gertiie" relocated to Ultimo, Sydney.

My grandfather George Douglas Bryant enlisted at Liverpool Camp on 17th February 1915, putting up his age by four years to get accepted. He served at Gallipoli, then after evacuation served in France with the 5th Machine Gun Battalion. He was a Corporal and had his horse shot and killed from under him. When he died in 1968 he still had the bullet in him. The next near miss was when the chain of his ID tags on the neck broke, he tied them onto his wrist, he reached up to the barb wire at the top of the trench, to see what was going on, when a single shot hit the chain holding the tags and broke it. In November 1918 he was then transferred to 2nd Machine Gun Battalion. He embarked for England in mid-January 1919 and one month later attached to the Anzac Provost Corps for the remainder of his service. He was promoted to ER/2nd Corporal in April 1919.

He came home and married my nanna (Margaret Johanna Thomas) in 1920 at Broadway. In 1930 they moved from Redfern to their Rose Street, Darlington home and lived there for many years.

Being an Ultimo resident, his name appers on the monument at the north end on Harris Street, Pyrmont and also being born and raised in Hill End his name appears on the Hill End WW1 Honour Roll.