George Oswald (Mick) BLAIR

BLAIR, George Oswald

Service Number: 1914
Enlisted: Not yet discovered
Last Rank: Private
Last Unit: 4th Infantry Battalion
Born: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 3 March 1893
Home Town: Kiama, New South Wales
Schooling: Not yet discovered
Occupation: Horse Driver
Died: Killed in Action, Polygon Wood, Belgium, 22 September 1917, aged 24 years
Cemetery: No known grave - "Known Unto God"
Memorials: Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Haymarket NSW Government Railway and Tramway Honour Board, Menin Gate Memorial (Commonwealth Memorial to the Missing of the Ypres Salient)
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World War 1 Service

13 Apr 1915: Involvement Private, 1914, 4th Infantry Battalion, Third Ypres, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '8' embarkation_place: Sydney embarkation_ship: HMAT Kyarra embarkation_ship_number: A55 public_note: ''
13 Apr 1915: Embarked Private, 1914, 4th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Kyarra, Sydney

Great Sydney Central Station Honour Board

George Oswald BLAIR (Service Number 1914) was born on 8 June 1887 at Leichhardt. This date from his railway record card does not correspond to Blair’s age on enlistment. There is only one soldier named George Blair who died in World War I.
There are only two entries on his record card. On 19 January 1914 that he was employed on a temporary basis as a fitter at Harden and that on 22 May 1915 that he had resigned. This date is probably a clerical formality as from his enlistment papers he had joined the AIF in January, and by May was already overseas, having left Australia through Sydney on HMAT ‘Kyarra’ on 13 April 1915. On his enlistment papers, rather than describing his calling as a ‘fitter’ he is a ‘horsedriver’.
By June he was serving on Gallipoli with the 4th Infantry Battalion, and in August was admitted to hospital with a gunshot wound to his hands, though other reports show a thigh wound. By the end of September, he had re-joined his unit, in December was evacuated to Alexandria and in March was in Marseilles. In May he was again wounded, now with ‘shock’, but returned to duty after a week. By August he was sent to the 2nd Army Rest Camp for a fortnight and re-joined the Battalion on 27 August.
He was killed in action in Belgium on 22 September 1917 at Polygon Wood. Blair was a Lewis Machine Gunner and went up ahead of the rest of the company. While doing so he was killed by a shell. It was quite evident that he had been instantly killed. His body was hastily buried, and the grave’s location lost so his name is recorded on the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Flanders, Belgium.
(NAA B2455-3098222)

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