Earle Walter GRAY

Earle Walter GRAY Update Details

If you confirm that you want to proceed with the update, this record will be locked for editing by all other users until you have finished. You will have 7 days to complete your changes before they will be automatically submitted.

Do you want to proceed?

GRAY, Earle Walter

Service Number:	NX13140
Enlisted:	24 April 1940
Last Rank:	Corporal
Last Unit:	2nd/1st Infantry Battalion
Born:	Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 25 June 1919
Home Town:	Bellevue Hill, Woollahra, New South Wales
Schooling:	Not yet discovered
Occupation:	Truck Driver
Died:	Killed in Action, Egypt, 22 July 1941, aged 22 years
Cemetery:	Not yet discovered
Memorials:	Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour

World War 2 Service

3 Sep 1939:	Involvement Private, NX13140
24 Apr 1940:	Enlisted Australian Military Forces (Army WW2), Corporal, NX13140, 2nd/1st Infantry Battalion
Date unknown:	Discharged Australian Military Forces (Army WW2), Corporal, NX13140, 2nd/1st Infantry Battalion

A soldier far from home

Corporal Earle Walter Gray lies in a lonely grave, the only Australian interred in the British Cemetery in Aswan Southern Egypt.

A truck driver from Bellevue Hill in Sydney Earle enlisted in the AIF in April 1940 and was allocated as a reinforcement for the 1st Battalion 2/AIF. Earle was far from being a model soldier, within a month of enlisting he was in Newcastle Hospital with concussion the result of a motor vehicle accident where he overturned a private vehicle in Sandgate killing his passenger. He was later convicted in a civil court of negligent driving and fined.

On his release from hospital he re-joined his training battalion at Greta in the Hunter Valley and in July he was confined to barracks after being found guilty of using insubordinate language - he then was charged twice more for absconding whilst confined to barracks. As a result Earle, a Corporal, was reduced in rank to Private

In September, after completing his embarkation leave he embarked for the Middle East in Sydney. When the ship berthed in Fremantle he was again absent without leave, this time from his transport ship. The reason was he had been arrested for stealing a motor van and driving it whilst under the influence. He was sentenced to a month in gaol and a large fine, which he was was unable to pay, so in default he served a second month in gaol.

On his release in November he re-embarked for the Middle East. Earle just couldn’t keep out of trouble, again being charged with being absent from place of duty whilst at sea.

Earle joined the 1st Battalion in January 1941, serving in Greece and escaping from Crete in May 41. He was hospitalised initially in Cairo with an infected forearm before being moved to a convalescent camp and then to a British Army Hospital in the Suez canal area in late May with an skin infection of his genitalia.

Earle would languish in the hospital for three weeks before again absconding. This time he would remain on the run until the 22nd of July, when he committed suicide at Aswan shooting himself in the chest.

Just 22, he was clearly a disturbed young man and after his experiences in Greece and Crete followed by his medical condition, life had become too difficult. He remains a casualty of war, buried far from home.😥

Virtual
War Memorial
Australia