George Gordon

George Gordon

Australian Expeditionary Force

Died 25th April 1918 age

Pte. George Gordon – Aus. Ex. Force

These two were brothers, six years apart. They were sons of John Gordon, Farmer and Georgina Ingram, who had married at Oldmachar Aberdeen in 1878.  The family appears in the 1891 census living at Pitmedden Farm, Craigmyle. John Gordon is stated to have been born in the parish, and his wife came from Banffshire. In 1891 there were six children, of whom George was the second youngest. John’s mother Mary and two servants lived with them. By 1901 George had two more brothers William and Robert then aged 8 and 6. They died within a very few months of one another in the last year of the war.

Private G. Gordon

George Gordon was born on 17 February 1888 at Pitmedden, Torphins, and appears with the family in the censuses of 1891 and 1901. In 1911 he emigrated, sailing

for Australia from London on board the “Durham” on 27 June 1911, as one of a large gang of “railway workers” which included William Bews who was also to become a casualty of the war.  Gordon and Bews were born only weeks apart, and it seems likely that at the very least they knew one another and may possibly have been friends. Work was about to begin on the construction of the trans-continental Australian railway from Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie, and it may be that labour was being imported for that purpose. 

George Gordon enlisted, as a volunteer, at Mount Gambier South Australia on 6 March 1916. He gave the name of his mother, still residing at Pitmedden, as his next of kin. The enlistment papers note his occupation as “Farm labourer” and he was then 27 years old.  He was appointed to “B” Company 2nd Depot Battalion, then 50th Battalion of the A.I.F. and shipped to Tel-el-kebir, possibly for training. From there he was transferred to Alexandria, then embarked in early June 1916 on the “Arcadian” bound for Marseilles where his unit were to join the British Expeditionary Force. After about six weeks in France, Gordon spent a short time in hospital suffering from gastro-enteritis, but rejoined his unit at the beginning of September 1916. On 30 March the following year, he took sick again with a case of “S.T.A. Foot” which kept him out of action until 20 April.  Then on 10 June 1917 he suffered a gunshot wound to the hip, rejoining the battalion on about 26 July. 

On 24 April 1918, German forces captured the village of Villers-Bretonneux in Picardy. It was recaptured, in the course of that evening and the following day, by Australians of the 4th and 5th Divisions of the First Australian Imperial Force, including the 50th Battalion, at the cost of massive Australian casualties. Private Gordon was one of them. He died on 25 April 1918. 

A note in his service record states that “Owing to the severity of action the body was not recovered by this Battalion”, but possibly that was superseded, as a separate note reads “Buried 500 yds S. of Villers-Bretonneux”. He is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux memorial.

Sources
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Registers of births and marriages
Census 1891 and 1901
National Archives of Australia: Series B2455 Item no. 4774613
http://www.ancestorsonboard.com
Wikipedia re 50th Bn AIF’s involvement at Villers-Bretonneux April 1918
Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour at http://www.awm.gov.au
Aberdeen Evening Express 17 May 1918

Private R. R. Gordon 

On the outbreak of the First World War a brigade of Marines was formed for service ashore. Robert Gordon served in one such brigade. At the time of his death he was an Able Seaman of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, Hawke Bn. R.N. Division (Service no. ClydeZ/1754).

Robert Reid Gordon was born at Torphins on 25 November 1894. In 1901 he was the youngest of 8 children. In 1911, aged 16, he was working on his father’s farm. 

Robert Gordon enlisted as a volunteer in the first weeks of the war, on 25 October 1914, the month before his twentieth birthday. At that point in time he gave his occupation as farm servant, living still at Pitmedden. He was assigned to Benbow Bn., Blandford. In June 1915 he was transferred from Benbow to Anson Bn. and despatched to Gallipoli. On 16 September 1915 he was taken ill with enteritis and transported by the hospital ship “Somali” to hospital on Malta. On 8 October 1915 he was sent back to England on the “Massilia” and admitted to Haslar Hospital with dysentery. By early November 1915, he was fit enough to return to duty. In July 1916, having been transferred to Hawke Bn. part of the British Expeditionary Force, he disembarked at Boulogne from England where his unit joined the 63rd Royal Naval Division, and on 13 September 1916 he joined the 8th Entrenching Bn.  He had a period of leave from 29 August 1917 to 8 September 1917, which was probably his last. 

Private Gordon was 23, and back in the care of the 149th Royal Naval Field Ambulance, France, when he died of wounds to his left shoulder on 2 January 1918, about three months before George. He is buried at Villers-Plouich Communal Cemetery.

No details of the precise circumstances of Robert Gordon’s death have been found. However, the 63rd Royal Naval Division took part in the second battle of Passchendaele in October and November 1917, suffering massive losses, and were also involved in the action of Welsh Ridge on 30 December 1917; his place of commemoration at Villers-Plouich Communal Cemetery suggests he was probably a casualty of those engagements. 

Sources
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Census 1901 and 1911
National Archives – Service record GBM_ADM339-0025
Online sources re RND action late 1917
Aberdeen Press & Journal and Aberdeen Evening Express 17 January 1918