Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Percy Oswald Truman was born on 31 December 1898 at Mount Gambier, son of George Edward and Maria Truman. He was enrolled at Mount Gambier High School on 27 September 1910 by his father, George E. Truman, wheelwright, of Wehl Street, Mount Gambier. He left the school on 27 September 1912.  He had served with C Company, 74th Battalion, Commonwealth Military Forces. Truman worked in the local post-office and played cricket for St Andrew’s Club.

He enlisted in Mount Gambier on 7 February 1916 (19, postal assistant, single, Presbyterian), and named his father, George Edward Truman of Mount Gambier, as his next of kin. His mother was Maria Truman. He embarked from Adelaide on the ‘Mongolia’ on 13 July as a private attached to the 19th Reinforcements to the 9th Light Horse Regiment and arrived in Egypt on 12 August where he was attached to the 3rd Light Horse Training Regiment. He completed a course of instruction in signalling in November and December of 1916 before being transferred to the 9th Light Horse Regiment in mid-February 1917.

He was involved in the First Battle of Gaza on 27 March 1917 and was killed in action on 19 April 1917 during the equally unsuccessful Second Gaza. According to a letter from Lieutenant George Louis Henry Mueller:

We had just advanced across the open when shrapnel was poured on us very thickly. Percy was about 20 yards behind me when he was hit with a pellet of shrapnel which went in near the right ear and out on the left side of the face. Death was instantaneous. Cpl [Corporal] Gaudy, who dressed his wound and attended the burial, is writing you, enclosing your son's personal gear that was found in his pockets. Your son was buried about seven miles south-east of Gaza, in Syria. 

Military records held by the Australian Archives however suggest his body was left on the field during the withdrawal from Ataweinah, about 6 miles south-east of Gaza and that his remains were exhumed later and reburied in Gaza Military Cemetery, Egypt. It is probable that the information in Lieutenant Mueller’s letter was prompted by a concern for Mrs Truman’s feelings rather than being an accurate reflection of the facts surrounding Percy’s death. He likely reasoned that Percy’s mother would have obtained some solace in the thought that his death had been quick and would not want to hear that his body had not received a proper burial. On reflection, why would Corporal Gaudy have bandaged Percy’s wounds if Percy’s death had been instantaneous?

Published in Ours: the origins and early years of Mount Gambier High School and Old Scholars who served in the Great European War by Graeme Roulstone