Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

John William Henry Sherry was the eldest son of Joseph Patrick Sherry and Annie Mabel May Gardiner (Simons). He was Shirley’s mother, Eileen (Sherry) Canning’s eldest brother. He was 13 years older than Eileen.

John gave his age as 22 years, 10 months on his enlistment form on 23 Dec 2915 which would put his birth as being in Feb 1893, however Vic BDM has his registration of birth as being in 1892, so there is some discrepancy. Either way, John was around 23 years old when he embarked on the HMAT Warilda on the 8th February 1916 after approx. 6 weeks training at Royal Melbourne and Williamstown. This is a photo of John taken in Melbourne shortly after he enlisted.


John was assigned to the 9th Reinforcements to the 24th Battalion which had been serving at Gallipoli in 1915. The following is a photo of the 9th Reinforcements shortly before they left Melbourne on the HMAT Warilda.
9th Reinforcements, 24th Battalion
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/DAOD1278/
o 9th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Warilda 8 February 1916,


 
Studio portrait of 3992 Private (Pte) John William Henry Sherry,
9th Reinforcements, 24th Battalion, of Gippsland, Vic.
These next 2 photographs are part of the Australian War Memorial Photograph collection, and come with the following information:
“Studio portrait of 3992 Private (Pte) John William Henry Sherry, 9th Reinforcements, 24th Battalion, of Gippsland, Vic. Pte Sherry enlisted on 28 December 1915 and embarked aboard HMAT Warilda in Melbourne on 8 February 1916. He was serving with the 10th Machine Gun Company at the Hindenburg Line in France when he was killed in action on 29 September 1918.”
However the Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour record says that he was serving with the 3rd Australian Machine Gun Company. This may have been prior to being with the 10th.


 


Roll of Honour name projection
John William Henry Sherry's name will be projected onto the exterior of the Hall of Memory on:
Tue 26 February 2019 at 1:29am
Tue 09 April 2019 at 8:13pm
Fri 26 July 2019 at 8:33pm
Sat 14 September 2019 at 4:07am
These dates and times are estimates. The actual time of projection could also change as a result of weather and other factors, so it is advisable to check closer to the date. In the rare event of a temporary loss of electrical power, the names scheduled for display in that period will not appear until the next time listed.

 
WW1 Service Record Documents
The following are taken from the 60+page record for John William Henry Sherry that is publicly available from the National Archives of Australia website.










24th Battalion History
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-conflicts-periods/ww1/1aif/2div/06bde/24th_battalion_aif.htm
• 24th Battalion AIF (Victoria) [6th Infantry Brigade]
Formed Victoria February 1915. Departed Melbourne Euripides 8 May 1915.
o 1st Reinforcement departed Sydney Ceramic 26 June 1915,
o 2nd Reinforcements departed Melbourne Demosthenes 16 July 1915,
o 3rd Reinforcements departed Melbourne Anchises 26 August 1915,
o 4th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Hororata 27 September 1915,
o 5th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Osterley 29 September 1915,
o 6th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Ulysses 27 October 1915,
o 7th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Commonwealth 26 November 1915,
o 8th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Afric 5 January 1916,
o 9th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Warilda 8 February 1916,
o 10th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Wiltshire 7 March 1916,
o 11th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Malwa 21 March 1916,
o 12th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Euripides 4 April 1916,
o 13th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Themistocles 28 July 1916,
o 14th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Miltiades 1 August 1916,
o 15th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Shropshire 25 September 1916,
o 16th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Nestor 2 October 1916,
o 17th Reinforcements departed Sydney Argyllshire 31 October 1916,
o 18th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Hororata 23 November 1916,
o 19th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Ascanius 11 May 1917,
20th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Nestor 21 November 1917.
Battle Honours: Suvla, Gallipoli 1915, Egypt 1915-16, Somme 1916-18, Pozieres, Bapaume 1917, Bullecourt, Ypres 1917, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Broodeseinde, Poelcappelle, Passchendaele, Ancre 1918, Hamel, Amiens, Albert 1918, Mont St Quentin, Hindenburg Line, Beaurevoir, France and Flanders 1916-18
• Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front
24th Battalion
The 24th Battalion was raised in a hurry. The original intent was to raise the fourth battalion of the 6th Brigade from the “outer states”, but a surplus of recruits at Broadmeadows Camp in Victoria lead to a decision being made to raise it there. The battalion was formed during the first week of May 1915, and sailed from Melbourne at the end of that week.
Training shortfalls were made up in Egypt in July and August, and on 4 September 1915 the Battalion went ashore at Gallipoli. It spent the next 16 weeks sharing duty in the Lone Pine trenches with the 23rd Battalion. The fighting at Lone Pine was so dangerous and exhausting that battalions rotated every day. While the bulk of the battalion was at Gallipoli, a small party of 52, trained as packhorse handlers, served with the British force in Salonika.
The Battalion was reunited in Egypt in early 1916 and proceeded to France in March. It took part in its first major offensive around Pozières and Mouquet Farm in July and August 1917. The Battalion got little rest during the bleak winter of 1916–17 alternating between the front and labouring tasks. When patrolling no-man’s land the men of the 24th adopted a unique form of snow camouflage – large white nighties bought in Amiens.
In May 1917 the battalion participated in the successful, but costly, second battle of Bullecourt. It was involved for only a single day – 3 May – but suffered almost 80 per cent casualties. The AIF’s focus for the rest of the year was the Ypres sector in Belgium, and the 24th’s major engagement there was the seizure of Broodseinde Ridge.
Like many AIF battalions, the 24th was very weak at the beginning of 1918, but still played its part in turning back the German offensive in April. When the Allies took to the offensive, the 24th fulfilled supporting roles during the battles of Hamel and Amiens. At Mont St Quentin, however, it played a major role by recapturing the main German strong point atop the summit on 1 September. A diorama at the Australian War Memorial depicts this attack.
The battalion’s last battles of the war were at Beaurevoir on 3 October and Montbrehain on 5 October. It left the front line for the last time on 6 October 1918 and disbanded in May 1919.

HMAT WARILDA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAT_Warilda
HMAT Warilda (His Majesty's Australian Transport) was a 7713-ton vessel, built by William Beardmore and Company in Glasgow as the SS Warilda for the Adelaide Steamship Company.[1] She was designed for the East-West Australian coastal service, but following the start of the First World War, she was converted into a troopship and later, in 1916, she was converted into a hospital ship.
Her identical sister ships, also built by William Beardmore and Company, were SS Wandilla (1912) and SS Willochra (1913).
Time as a troopship
• 5 October 1915: 10th Reinforcements, 9th Battalion embarked from Brisbane heading to Egypt.:[2] 15 Batt embarked Brisbane HMAT A69 Warilda same date[3]
• 8 October 1915: 10th Reinforcements, 1st Infantry Battalion embarked from Sydney heading to Egypt.[4]
• 8 November 1915: 10th Reinforcements, 1st Brigade of the AIF, embarked from Liverpool, NSW, Australia. The ship arrived at Fremantle, Western Australia on 15 October 1915, and reached Suez on 5 November, a Friday, where the troops were disembarked.[5]
• 25 May 1916: Tunneling Companies, 2 Reinforcements embarked Melbourne.[6]
• 1 June 1916: Tunneling Company 6, 3rd Tunneling Company embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia 1 June 1916. Disembarked Plymouth, England, 18 July 1916.[7]
Sinking
On 3 August 1918, she was transporting wounded soldiers from Le avre, France to Southampton when she was torpedoed by the German submarine UC-49.[8] This was despite being marked clearly with the Red Cross; as with a number of other hospital ships torpedoed during the war, Germany claimed the ships were also carrying arms.[9] The ship sank in about two hours, and of the 801 persons on board, 123 died when the Warilda sank. The Deputy Chief Controller of the Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corp, Mrs Violet Long, lost her life in this action.[10] Amongst the survivors was her commander, Captain Sim, who was later awarded the OBE by King George V.[11] Her wreck lies in the English Channel[12]