Compton Chamberlayne War Graves - Compton Chamberlayne, Wiltshire - Australian Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

"Compton Chamberlayne Cemetery is located on High Street. The Cemetery contains the graves of thirty four WWI casualties, twenty eight being Australian Servicemen of the Australian Imperial Forces (A.I.F.), three are from the London Regiment of the Royal Fusiliers, one soldier from Royal Engineers, one from the Royal Irish Fusiliers and one from the Royal Irish Rifles. The burials date from February, 1916 through to February, 1919. Thirty three of the plots are commemorated with a Commonwealth War Graves Headstone. The burial plot is laid out in three rows, with a stone plinth or cairn located at the front of the burial ground. The Cairn has an engraving which reads:- "The severe winter of 1916-17 caused hardship amongst the troops encamped around Salisbury Plain. Between December, 1916 and April, 1917, eleven A.I.F. deaths were directly associated with respiratory disorders. The majority of the casualties had only enlisted six months earlier and two of the months since enlistment had been spent on a sea voyage from the Australian summer to the British winter." "

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Inside the plinth is a visitors book and a book about the site.

Australian Casualties Buried in the Cemetery -

Joseph Edwin Cook 1916
William Gilbert 1916
Evan Jones 1916
Algin Le Tisser 1916
Alexander George Pairman 1916
Philip Walter Amoore alias Haywood 1917
Charles William Ferrow 1917
James Howard 1917
William Joseph Park 1917
William Ernest Riley 1917
William Charles Snell 1917
Charles Tull 1917
Isaac James Turnbull 1917
John Thomas Wehrmann 1917
Thomas Henry William White 1917
William Joseph Arnold 1918
Thomas Cass 1918
Alfred Alwin Dreckow 1918
Allan Ernest Evans 1918
Walter Richard Finn 1918
Percy Robert Knowles 1918
Horace William McCarthy 1918
Alison Hope Oliver 1918
Sydney Ross 1918
Roy Allen Sillar 1918
Thomas James Skipper 1918
Sidney Harold Turner 1918
John Henry Trengove 1918

Also British & Irish Casualties Buried in the Cemetery -

Thomas Alfred Lintott 1916
William George Norris 1916
Valleton Sydney Algernon Redman 1916
Patrick Joseph Larkin 1917
Cornelius Walsh 1918
Charles E. B. Hooper 1919

"Hurdcott (No. 3 Group Clearing Hospital, A.I.F.)

[Medical Examination at Hurdcott] Hurdcott Camp was established in 1915 for various Regiments, some Rifle brigades from London, and several from the north of England such as the East Lancashire (The Accrington Pals), 1st Hull and several from Yorkshire. There was a small hospital for them but in August 1916, when the Australian forces took over the camp the hospital was enlarged.

No 3 Command Depot of the Australian Imperial Forces made their HQ in the Farm House and the camp and facilities were greatly expanded to accommodate the thousands of Australian wounded from the battlefields in France.

It was staffed by Australian medical services and had at least 172 beds (a report quoted in the ‘Official History of the Australian Army Medical Services’ edited by A.C. Butler: ‘In the first six months of 1918 the Group Clearing Hospital at Hurdcott admitted 3,368 patients, discharged 2,118 to their units and sent 1,010 to other military hospitals. The average number of patients in hospital being 172 )’

A Group Clearing Hospital (sometimes called Convalescent Hospital) was classified for being sent patients who would take at least 6 months to be fit to return to active service. One, Jack Duffell ( Soldier Boy , by Gilbert Mant) spent 8 months in both Hurdcott and Fovant before being sent back to Australia on a troopship which was torpedoed before it reached the Mediterranean! Luckily, all on board were saved, brought back to England where they began their journey again."

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Type of Historic Marker: Monument Related Website: [Web Link] Age/Event Date: Not listed Type of Historic Marker if other: Not listed Historic Resources.: Not listed

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