SHOEMARK, Leslie
| Service Number: | 2456 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 25 July 1915, Enlisted at Goulburn. |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | 31st Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Lake Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia , December 1891 |
| Home Town: | Lake Bathurst, Goulburn Mulwaree, New South Wales |
| Schooling: | Not yet discovered |
| Occupation: | Railway Locomotive Blacksmith |
| Died: | Killed in Action, France, 25 January 1917 |
| Cemetery: |
No known grave - "Known Unto God" Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, Villers-Bretonneux, Picardie, France |
| Memorials: | Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Goulburn District Railway Employees Great War Honour Roll, Haymarket NSW Government Railway and Tramway Honour Board, Tarago War Memorial, Villers-Bretonneux Memorial |
World War 1 Service
| 25 Jul 1915: | Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 2456, 31st Infantry Battalion, Enlisted at Goulburn. | |
|---|---|---|
| 14 Mar 1916: | Involvement Private, 2456, 31st Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '16' embarkation_place: Melbourne embarkation_ship: HMAT Anchises embarkation_ship_number: A68 public_note: '' | |
| 14 Mar 1916: | Embarked Private, 2456, 31st Infantry Battalion, HMAT Anchises, Melbourne |
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Add my storyBiography contributed by John Oakes
Leslie Shoemark was born at Goulburn about December 1891. He was a blacksmith with the Locomotive Branch of the NSW Railways.
Shoemark enlisted at Goulburn on 25th July 1915 and gave his father, George Shoemark living in Lake Bathurst as his next of kin. He was allotted to the 31st Battalion. He embarked HMAT ‘Anchises’ at Melbourne on 14th March 1916 and reached Suez on 15th April 1916. He only spent a few weeks in Egypt in the 8th Training Battalion, although for some of that time he was sick in hospital, before he embarked HMT ‘Franconia’ at Alexandria for passage to England. he arrived at the port of Plymouth on 16th June.
After further training he proceeded overseas to France in September and was taken on the strength of the 31st Battalion on 22nd September 1916. For the first half of October he was sick in hospital at the 5th Division Rest Station and the 2nd New Zealand Field Ambulance, with diarrhoea, pyrexia and Influenza.
On 25th January 1917 he was wounded in action with shrapnel to his back and fractured legs. He was admitted to the 15th Australian Field Ambulance. He died of his wounds the same day.
Pte. Geo. Lang, (8300) stated:
‘Shoemark was about 5 yards from me on Jan. 25th 1917, in the trench on the Somme at Le Transloy when a H.E. shell burst on the parapet fatally wounding him in the thigh. I went to his assistance and he was bandaged up immediately and taken to the dressing station at Bernafay Siding where he died in about 2 hours. I have seen his grave which is marked with a regulation cross and it is in the Cemetery (containing hundreds of graves) at Bernafay Siding. He was in my Company and I knew him well.’
The location was lost and after the war could not be located, so Leslie Shoemark has no known grave and is remembered at the Villers Bretonneux Memorial, France.
A pension of £2 per fortnight was granted to his mother, Emily Jane, from 6 May 1917.
- based on the Australian War Memorial Honour Roll and notes for the Great Sydney Central Station Honour Board.
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