Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Alfred BARTLETT, (Service Number 2585) was born at Goulburn on 16 May 1888. He spent his whole railway career as a labourer in the Per-Way Branch in the Southern Division with recorded increments until December 1919, though he was long dead by then. A note on his card specifies that he is to be paid, while serving with the Expeditionary Forces, based on Rough Carpenter’s rate of 11/4 per day from 16.2.17 to 9.5.17 and thereafter at the departmental rate for that trade. On his 2 August 1915 enlistment papers, he gives his calling as ‘Railway\ Fencer’ and this may explain the debate over his pay rate as he must have felt that fencing was more skilled than labouring.
He embarked from Australia on HMAT ‘Euripides’ on 2 November 1915, travelling to Egypt and then through Alexandria to Marseilles in March 1916. In July 1917 he became a Lance Corporal and in October a Corporal.
He was killed in action on 31 August 1918, shot through the brain by a sniper. At first, he was buried in an isolated grave, close to a trench in a shell hole just W of Mount St Quentin and 1 mile N of Péronne. After the war isolated graves were exhumed and bodies bought into larger cemeteries and Bartlett is now buried in the Péronne Communal Cemetery Extension, Péronne, Picardie, France. Alfred Bartlett was awarded the Military Medal for bravery in the field during operations on the 8th and 9th August 1918, though the citation would suggest that date was the 11th.
‘Action for which commended - In the vicinity of FRAMERVILLE near AMIENS immediately after the attack on 11th August 1918, this N.C.O. displayed marked gallantry under very heavy shell fire when he, and another man dug out 7 men who had been buried. By his fearlessness and energy 6 lives were saved. He maintained the position in the trench until ordered to move to a new one, thereby setting a fine example to his men.’
(NAA 2455-305411)