Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

My soldier from WW1 is called Alan Burt Roberts. He was born in Adelaide on November 20th 1896. He was 5’9 inches tall, weighed 155 pounds and his hair and eyes were brown. His skin complexion was pale. He enlisted for the war at the age of 21 on November 20th 1917. Before the war he worked as a surveyor and lived in Campbelltown, Adelaide. He was single and followed the Church of England.

Alan Roberts enlisted in Melbourne, Victoria and on December 22nd he embarked from Sydney on the HMAT A38 Ulysses to Southampton as shown in the picture. He arrived in Suez, Egypt on the the January 22nd to commence his training. He then travelled birthing at Taranto, in Apulia southern Italy. From there, he would continue his journey to Southampton via Cherbourg in the south of France.  Alan Roberts would have seen many places that he probably would otherwise never have travelled to. On February 15th 1918 he arrived in Southampton. He was part of the fifth draft of Australian Survey Corps and the Australian engineers heading to the western front. He left for the western front from Folkstone on the south channel coast of England.  The fifth draft was the final of the first world war and they would have fought in either Fromelles or Pozieres on the western front. On April 29th he arrived on the western front, in France as a survey Corporal. His job was not to fight but to map the land to provide suitable routes for transportation of men and supplies, provide intelligence of where the enemy was located and the terrain of the battlefield, and to measure and map the trenches. On May 8th later that year, he was called in as a reinforcement to fight elsewhere in France.  In November later that year he was evacuated to the hospital. He was in hospital for a approximately a month, where he was treated for influenza and bronchitis.  Only a few days after being evacuated to hospital on November 11th 1918 the war ended. He was discharged on 10th December 1918 and left from Lancashire to travel back to Australia on the HMAT A18 Wiltshire to New South Wales. He arrived in Australia on 7th February 1919.

Alan Roberts remained with the army after the war until 1942. He was promoted to sergeant in 1920, and then to a lieutenant and captain in 1944. He was based in Townsville Queensland, then New South Wales, Victoria and then back to Townsville and Brisbane. During the second world war, he was the Officer in Charge of two different Australian Survey Corps Field Depots in Queensland. Alan Roberts died in western Sydney on May 11th 1966.