SALM1077
NEILL, Daniel Edward
| Service Number: | 1547 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 14 July 1915 |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | 32nd Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Minimay, Victoria, Australia, 1888 |
| Home Town: | Frances, Naracoorte and Lucindale, South Australia |
| Schooling: | Not yet discovered |
| Occupation: | Labourer |
| Memorials: | Ballarat Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial, Kowree Shire Honour Roll, Naracoorte and District Town Hall Honour Board WW1 |
World War 1 Service
| 14 Jul 1915: | Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 1547, 32nd Infantry Battalion | |
|---|---|---|
| 18 Nov 1915: | Involvement Private, 1547, 32nd Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '17' embarkation_place: Adelaide embarkation_ship: HMAT Geelong embarkation_ship_number: A2 public_note: '' | |
| 18 Nov 1915: | Embarked Private, 1547, 32nd Infantry Battalion, HMAT Geelong, Adelaide | |
| Date unknown: | Wounded 1547, 32nd Infantry Battalion |
Help us honour Daniel Edward Neill's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.
Add my storyBiography contributed by Stephen Brooks
Wounded and captured at Fromelles 19 July 1916. Last seen in the German trenches with a fractured left shin. Leg amputated whilst in captivity.
Horsham Times 12 March 1918, page 6 A GERMAN PRISONER.
"Mrs. Kiely, of Goroke, has received word that her nephew, Corporal Daniel Neill, who had been a prisoner in Germany for 18 months, returned to Melbourne on Saturday, looking well. Private Neill, who left with the 32nd Battalion, in November, 1915, was wounded and taken prisoner at Fleurbaix. He was conveyed to a hospital behind the lines, where one of his legs was amputated. The German doctors, he said, were very kind, and everything possible was done for him. After four months there he was transferred to a hospital camp at Ingolstadt, and two months later to a camp for prisoners of war at Langensalza, where there were between 30 and 40 Australians and 400 "Tommies." "The discipline at Langensalza," said Private Neill, "was very strict. We slept on the floor with one straw mattress and one blanket in summer and two blankets in winter. But we fared, I think, better than our guards in the way of food. We could not eat the rations supplied to us, but the Australian Red Cross parcels, packed with food and clothing, ar rived regularly, and we had plenty to eat. The Red Cross service was splendid, and our parcels were always delivered. We always had white bread, and this our guards never got. Then we had books to read, there being a good library of English works sup plied, I suppose, by the Red Cross." Private Neill supplemented this information by saying that the ordinary prisoners of war were not so well off as the wounded men. They were marched off to work, but they got their full supplies of food and necessaries from the Red Cross. "I spoke to German soldiers," added Private Neill, "from time, to time, but the orders, are very strict that they must keep aloof from the prisoners. They are not allowed to accept even a cigarette. From what I gathered, they are 'fed up' with war, but want peace, but on terms favorable to their country. Travelling through Germany one does not see very much, but cultivation seemed to be proceeding everywhere, the majority of the workers in the field being women."