Carol Kelly shares the story of her great uncle Ernest Beadle.

Ernest Beadle was born in 1888 in Brighton, Victoria, the eldest son of John and Alice Beadle. When war was declared Ernest’s younger brother Harold Beadle was one of the first to enlist and had already sailed on the HMAT Orvieto when Ernest enlisted on 9th November 1914. Ernest’s service number was 1315 and he was part of the 7th Battalion 2nd Reinforcements. He was aboard the HMAT Clan McGillivray when the ship departed Melbourne on 2 Feb 1915 bound for Egypt. Then, on 5 April 1915 he embarked on the SS Galeka from Alexandria to join his Battalion on the island of Lemnos near the Gallipoli Peninsula. Here, they practised landing from boats to secure a beach landing under attack. On the night of 24 April the ships carrying the troops left Lemnos and gathered off the coast of the Gallipoli Peninsula. The plan was for the 7th Battalion to land at 0530 hours as part of the second wave. History shows things did not go as planned. Ernest fought with the 7th Battalion until early August 1915 then on 8th August 1915 he was reported to have been killed in action. I believe from reading his service record that his body was never found, a common occurrence I would think in the heat of battle. A memorial plaque was erected at Lone Pine Cemetery. Nearly four years to the date of Ernest’s death his brother Harold who had survived Gallipoli was killed in France.

I remember my grandmother always hated the month of August as that was when she lost her two brothers.