HALL, Ernest Alfred
| Service Number: | 4208 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 21 November 1915, Beech Forest Rifle Club |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | 1st Pioneer Battalion |
| Born: | Beech Forest, Victoria, Australia, January 1895 |
| Home Town: | Beech Forest, Colac-Otway, Victoria |
| Schooling: | Beech Forest State School, Beech Forest, Victoria, Australia |
| Occupation: | Farmer |
| Died: | Killed In Action, Broodseinde Ridge, Belgium, 4 October 1917 |
| Cemetery: |
Belgian Battery Corner Cemetery Plot II, Row D, Grave No. 12 |
| Memorials: | Beech Forest WWI Honour Roll, Colac Soldier's Memorial |
World War 1 Service
| 21 Nov 1915: | Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 4208, 5th Infantry Battalion, Beech Forest Rifle Club | |
|---|---|---|
| 29 Dec 1915: | Involvement Private, 4208, 5th Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '8' embarkation_place: Melbourne embarkation_ship: HMAT Demosthenes embarkation_ship_number: A64 public_note: '' | |
| 29 Dec 1915: | Embarked Private, 4208, 5th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Demosthenes, Melbourne | |
| 3 Mar 1916: | Transferred AIF WW1, Private, 2nd Tunnelling Company (inc. 5th Tunnelling Company) | |
| 30 Sep 1916: | Transferred AIF WW1, Private, 1st Pioneer Battalion |
Help us honour Ernest Alfred Hall's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.
Add my storyBiography contributed by Evan Evans
Edited from Murray Ernest Hall,
Book outline for "Walk a War in My Shoes"
A autobiography of a private soldier’s experiences in WWI.
On the 25th August 1895, Ernest Alfred Hall was born into a pioneering Australian family that lived on a 313-acre property called 'Cloverdale' near the hamlet of Beech Forest, south of the Otway Ranges, some 200 kilometres south west of Melbourne, Victoria.
As a child, it seemed he would be destined for the life of a farmer in a country that was just realising its independence through Federation, yet his path was to be diverted by the cataclysmic events that befell Europe and the British Empire.
So it was, that one month short of his 20th birthday, Ernest caught the train to Melbourne and enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force. At only 5' 3" he was never going to be the biggest soldier in the army, but as his father said to him, "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, son, but the size of the fight in the dog."
From his country-Victoria upbringing, to his enthusiastic, parent-approved, enlistment, he had an unbridled desire to fight for King and Country. He progressed from the shores of Australia to a holding stage in Egypt and eventually his first experiences of the mayhem, death and destruction that was France in 1916. Assigned to the Pioneer Corps, then seconded to the Tunnelling Companies of the Australian Imperial Force, his letters recount the terrifying ordeal of mining below the front lines. In utter blackness, digging without a noise, only yards and sometimes inches from the Germans on the other side of thin tunnel walls. He tells of how, when they got too close, the ANZACs would rapidly organise explosive charges to bring down the earth on the enemy, before they could do the same. Viewed through the letters he wrote home to his brothers, Ernest’s journey is drawn inexorably towards the Third Battle of Ypres, centred on that little town called Passchendaele.
Like so many, Ernest Hall embarked for the war to end all wars. Unlike so many, his letters and records survived.
Click images to start slideshow.