VEAL, Curtis Clark
| Service Number: | 641 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 25 August 1914, Enoggera, Queensland |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | 9th Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Gympie, Queensland, Australia, 12 June 1893 |
| Home Town: | Gympie, Queensland |
| Schooling: | Central Infants School |
| Occupation: | Plumber |
| Died: | Natural causes, Wilcannia, New South Wales, Australia, 1955 |
| Cemetery: | Not yet discovered |
| Memorials: |
World War 1 Service
| 25 Aug 1914: | Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 641, Enoggera, Queensland | |
|---|---|---|
| 24 Sep 1914: | Involvement AIF WW1, Private, 641, 9th Infantry Battalion, Enlistment/Embarkation WW1, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '9' embarkation_place: Brisbane embarkation_ship: HMAT Omrah embarkation_ship_number: A5 public_note: '' | |
| 24 Sep 1914: | Embarked AIF WW1, Private, 641, 9th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Omrah, Brisbane | |
| 25 Apr 1915: | Involvement AIF WW1, Private, 641, 9th Infantry Battalion, ANZAC / Gallipoli | |
| 9 May 1915: | Wounded AIF WW1, Private, 641, 9th Infantry Battalion, ANZAC / Gallipoli, Shell wound (both legs & buttocks) | |
| 15 Nov 1915: | Discharged AIF WW1, Private, 641, 9th Infantry Battalion, Returned to Australia due to wounds |
Help us honour Curtis Clark Veal's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.
Add my storyBiography contributed by Paul Trevor
'The diary entry that brought to light our VC hero that never was
JOSEPH Cecil Thompson seems like a man of quiet understatement.
While many who witnessed the landings at Anzac Cove in the inky dawn of April 25, 1915, recall a hellfire, showers of shrapnel and a murderous hail of bullets that sliced through the Anzac forces, Cecil was rather more measured.
“Severe fighting all day, and our men severely felt the want of artillery,” he notes in his diary. “Shrapnel fire very destructive ... our wounded began to come in large numbers.”
The reality of the Gallipoli landing was a bloody mauling at the hands of the Ottoman troops – about 2000 casualties on that first day. More than 750 of them were killed.
So when Cecil wrote two days later: “C. Veal (SB) recommended for VC (Victoria Cross) for rescuing Lt. Pattison from machine gun fire,” it’s safe to assume he had witnessed an act of genuine gallantry.
“C Veal” was Curtis Clark Veal, a 22-year-old plumber from Gympie, a keen trombone player who enlisted only three weeks after the declaration of war – seduced by travel and adventure – but who found himself instead under that murderous hail of April 25. He was a stretcher bearer in the 9th Battalion, one of 17 men in his unit, many of whom were fellow musicians.
By April 27, Cecil records that six of those 17 men were dead, another five were seriously wounded. Veal’s rescue of Lieutenant Walter Byron James Pattison, of Rockhampton, took on even greater import, as he wrote in his diary entry of April 26: “Nearly all our officers are killed and we lost heavily.”
Veal’s act of valour would have forever remained a secret buried by the mayhem of war but for the apparent magic of the internet.' READ MORE (www.heraldsun.com.au)
Biography contributed by Chris Buckley
Curtis was the fourth of six children of Thomas Frederick Veal (born in Whitechurch, Somerset) and Isabella Clark (born in Gladstone, QLD).
Youngest brother Alfred Roy served in WWII with 2/1 Guard Battalion.
Curtis was living in Gympie QLD, working as a Plumber and was a trombone player prior to his enlistment in WWI in 1914, and following his Discharge in 1915, he lived in a St Vincent de Paul doss house in Darlinghurst, Sydney, NSW. He lived in Brisbane, QLD and continued working as a Plumber. By 1918, Curtis had married Hilda Margaurite Owens Waller in Townsville QLD, and moved to Mackay where he was working as an Insurance Agent in 1919.
By 1925, Curtis had moved to Buranda in QLD where he was an Insurance Inspector. An alcoholic, suffering constant shaking, Curtis died in Northern NSW in 1955
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