Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Corporal David Thomson Allan, son of Mr George Allan, landscape gardener to the Railway Dept. and Mrs. Allan, of Twyford street. Deceased was 22 years of age and at the time  of his enlistment occupied the position of field officer in the Agricultural Department, for which he was specially fitted having served a successful course at Dookie Agricultural College  and obtaining his diploma. He belonged to C Company, 14th Battalion, 4th Infantry Brigade. He had attended the Central State School and was for some years a member of the the  Williamstown No 1 Company, Boys Naval Brigade.

ALLAN.—Killed in action on the 8th August, at Gallipoli, Corporal David Hunter Thomson Allan, loved cousin of Mrs A. B. Panther, of Raglan, and Mr R. Welsh, Beaufort; aged 22  years.
For King and country and all that a brave man holds dear.

David was born at St Kilda in 1893, the son of George Dougal Allan and his wife Isabella Somerville Thompson. He was educated at Williamstown State School and the Dookie  College, Victoria. David was a surveyor working as a field officer with the Department of Agriculture when he enlisted in October 1914 with the 14th Battalion. The Battalion  boarded the HMAT A38 Ulysses at 4.30pm and sailed at 8pm on the same day. The ship arrived in Albany on 27 December 1914 and waited for the other ships that would make up the Second Anzac Fleet. The Battalion was disembarked at Alexandria and the men were marched into a training camp known as Aerodrome Camp. On 11 April the Battalion  packed up their tents at the Aerodrome Camp. They then marched from Heliopolis to Helmia railway station for a short trip to Alexandria. There they boarded the SS Seang Chong.  The Battalion reached Mudros Harbour on Lemnos Island on 15 April. They left Mudros Harbour at 10am on Sunday 25 April and at 4pm the transport anchored near the  ships that had landed with the first wave earlier in the day. Apart from a small group of 30 men, who landed at 7pm on the 25, the Battalion went ashore at Gallipoli at 10.30am  on the 26 April. Not long after landing they were ordered to Courtney's Post. The Battalion was granted four days leave on Imbros Island between 11 and 15 July. The change of  food was too much for the men's systems and many were reported ill. Returning to Gallipoli, the Battalion was heavily involved in the breakout attempted by the Allied troops in  August 1915. In August, the 4th Brigade attacked Hill 971. The hill was taken at great cost and that may be when Lance Corporal David T. Allan was killed. His date of death is  given as 8 August 1915. There is no known grave. There is a memorial for him at the Lone Pine Cemetery and a tribute to him on his mother’s grave, Presbyterian S Grave 94 at  Brighton General Cemetery. His father, George Allan worked for the Victorian Railways and he went to David Charles McGrath, Member of the House of Representatives, and an  advocate for servicemen, to find more information about the death and burial of his son David. In a letter from Base Records dated 23 November 1919 he was told that An  intensive search is now being made over all battlefields with the view to locating unregistered graves. At the conclusion of the search it is proposed to adopt some suitable scheme  for erecting a memorial on or near old battlefields bearing the names of all the fallen soldiers whose graves are un-located.  - courtesy of Lois Comeadow