Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Name: Walter Vernon Heath
Service Number: 3819
Place of Birth: Keyneton
Date of Birth: 20 April 1882
Place of Enlistment: Adelaide
Date of Enlistment: 7 August 1916.
Age at Enlistment: 34 years 4 months
Next of Kin: Mother – Elizabeth Heath
Occupation: Fruit Grower
Religion: Congregational
Rank: Private
Embarking the Commonwealth with the 9/32nd Infantry in Adelaide
on 21 September 1916, Walter underwent further training in
England, prior to proceeding to France on the SS Victoria on 19
January 1917.
Private Heath’s military career was short and horrific. Within a
single day of joining his unit in France at Baupaume, on 16 February,
he was wounded in action. Immediately evacuated to the 45th
Casualty Clearing Station by the 15th Australian Field Ambulance
with a compound fracture to the left ankle from a gunshot, he was
transferred to the 1st General Hospital at Etretat. Two days later his
foot was amputated. A little over eight weeks later Private Walter
heath was dead from his wounds. He may never have had the
opportunity to open a comfort parcel from the Keyneton Red Cross
Circle ladies with socks knitted by the schoolchildren.
Private Walter Vernon Heath was buried in the churchyard
extension cemetery at Etretat near Le Harve, northern France on 14
may 1917 by Reverend Stephens. Having previously suffered the
tragic loss of sons Leonard, who at 9 years of age drowned in one of
the dams on the family property “Heathvale”, and 24 year old
William who fell from a haystack, Walter’s death was a further
wrench to his mother and siblings.
Walter had nominated his mother as next of kin, and thus his
personal effects were sent to her, which included a military book, 3
devotional books, pipe, photos and letters. As his legatee, Elizabeth
Heath received a war pension of 2 pounds per fortnight. She
ordered four additional photographs of her son’s grave, noting her
thankfulness all the graves at Etretat were cared for so well.
The Heath family were stalwarts of the Keyneton Congregational
Church and the shock loss of this young man was keenly felt as the
congregation had only years earlier dedicated the memory of
Walter’s father, John in a stained glass window upon his death in
1909. So too, Walter was memorialised in stained glass.
Private Walter Vernon Heath was posthumously awarded the 1914
– 1915 Star Medal, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal,
with his mother receiving in due course a Memorial Scroll from the
King and a Memorial Plaque.
Source: NAA; B2455; HeathWV; Barcode 5309510
Heath family history courtesy Carolyn Lillecrapp