Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Vic was the second youngest of 11 children. My grandmother was the youngest and quite close to Vic. He joined up on 1 March 2015 and gave his age as 18 years six months. He was in fact only 16 years, seven months old. He left Australia in June 1915, arriving in Egypt in late July. He went ashore at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli with the 19th Battalion AIF, in August before contracting influenza in September and being evacuated to Malta in October to recover. He was sent to Egypt in November to wait for the 19th to return from Gallipoli in December. He was sick again in Egypt in January 1916 with 'catarrhal jaundice', a serious form of infectious hepatitis frequently transmitted by fecal contamination. He was with the 19th when it arrived in Marseilles in June 1916. He was wounded in July, most likely at Mouquet Farm, near Pozieres. He was treated in hospital at Boulogne and returned to his unit in August. He was promoted to corporal in September and wounded again the same month, suffering a 'Very large deep suppurating wound of right forearm'. He was again treated at Boulogne and Havre and in England in October. He was briefly discharged to the 61st Bn in March 1917 before rejoining the 19th in June. The 19th saw action in the Third Battle of Ypres starting in July, Menin Road in September and the Battle of Polygon Wood in September and October. Vic was killed at Zonnebeke in Belgium. He was in charge of a party preparing meals near the church and transporting them to the front line. A shell landed nearby and he was hit in the head by a piece of shrapnel which killed him instantly. He was buried in a shell hole and his grave marked but later shelling disturbed it and it was lost. He has, therefore, no known grave. His name appears on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres.