World War I Commemorative Website

War Memorial Hall  c1929

Memorial Hall circa 1929
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Alan Mervyn DAVIES

DAVIES

Alan Davies was born on 1 March 1893 in Heidelberg, Victoria. His parents were Charles Martyn and Lucy Amelia (née Walker) Davies. He attended Scotch from 1907 to 1910.

Alan was a Salesman and a clerk when he enlisted on 19 July 1915 in Melbourne. He served in the 14th Battalion and 25th Battalion with the rank of Private. His Regimental Number was 5362 or 5362A.

Alan died on 17 July 1918 at Villers - Bretonneux , France. He was 25 years of age.

Service record

Alan was initially allotted in July 1915 to the 19th Depot Battalion at Geelong, where in September he was made a Provisional Sergeant. From 27 December to 26 January 1916 he attended an Officers' Training School before returning to the Depot Battalion. He was not made an officer. In late March he was transferred to Broadmeadows and was allotted to the 17th Reinforcements for the 14th Battalion, one of the most famous Australian battalions of the war.

He joined the unit in Egypt, where as was custom he was reverted to Private, on 27 May 1916, shortly before the battalion sailed for France. He was with them at Bois Grenier on 2 July when he received a severe gunshot wound to the left thigh, probably during enemy shelling, though his father later said it was in a raid. He went to hospital at Boulogne and was then transferred to England. In September he was granted a two week furlough. From January 1917 he was sufficiently recovered to be taken on strength of No. 1 Command Depot as a Private. In September 1917 he was transferred to AIF Depots UK and promoted to Extra-Regimental Corporal with the rank of Acting Sergeant. In October he was sent to a course of instruction at a Detention Barracks at Lewes. There he lost his rank and reverted to Private.

In December he joined the ranks of the Anzac Provost Corps, or military police: a category of men notoriously unpopular with other Anzacs. The following day he was promoted again to Extra-Regimental Corporal. In May 1918 he requested successfully to be transferred out of the provosts to the 25th Battalion, losing his rank in the process. His father later claimed that he did this out of determination to go back and ‘help his mates’.

He sailed for France on 22 May and on 29 May was taken on strength of that battalion. Less than two months later, in July, with the end of the war in sight, he was killed in action. His friend James Wood was with Alan, and described him as dying instantly on being hit by a German shell forward of Villers-Bretonneux (see below). Alan’s brother and fellow Old Scotch Collegian Herbert had been killed in 1916.

Alan’s service file contains a restrained and poignant letter from his father asking that information about Alan be sent to his business address as ‘anything connected with his death tends to upset his mother’ (see below). His father arranged for the epitaph on Alan’s headstone to be a line from ‘In Memoriam’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson: ‘Death has made his darkness/beautiful with thee’.

Alan Davies is buried in the Crucifix Corner Cemetery (Plot IX, Row E, Grave 11), Villers-Bretonneux, France.

Photographs and Documents:

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An undated studio portrait of Alan Davies.

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Alan is seated at the front on the far right in this group of Old Scotch Collegian officers at Broadmeadows in 1916. Others who would also be killed were George Wood, Fred Collins, Wilfred Beaver and William Blair. Alan looks quite tall here, but was in fact a fairly modest 5 feet 7 ½ inches (171 cm). Here he is wearing a Sergeant’s stripes, but his rank would rise and fall with his various transfers, and he ended his life as a Private.

daviesAM

An account of Alan’s death from his friend James Wood.

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Letter from Alan’s father referring to his death and Herbert’s and the effect on their mother.

Sources:

  1. Australian War Memorial – Roll of Honour and Red Cross Wounded and Missing file
  2. Commonwealth War Graves Commission website
  3. Mishura Scotch Database
  4. National Archives of Australia – B2455, DAVIES A (under the number 5362A)
  5. Scotch Collegian 1918
  6. The AIF Project - https://www.aif.adfa.edu.au/showPerson?pid=73316

Page last updated: 11 November 2015