NAME:   Stanley Walton DAVIES                                            

SERVICE NO:  6239

YEAR OF BIRTH: 1894

PLACE OF BIRTH:  Hamilton

DATE OF ENLISTMENT: 22 April 1916

PLACE OF ENLISTMENT:  Melbourne

AGE AT ENLISTMENT:  22

UNIT: 5th Battalion

EMBARKED:  11 September 1916

TROOP SHIP:  HMAT A14 Euripides

FATE:  Killed in Action – Ypres, Belgium, 4 October 1917

Stanley Walton Davies was born at Hamilton in 1894 to Frederick Walton Davies and Mary Ann Blackney of Lonsdale Street.  While working as a boundary rider at Lubeck near Murtoa, Stanley travelled to Melbourne and enlisted on 22 April 1916 aged 26. He joined the 5th Battalion, 20 Reinforcements and sailed on the HMAT A14 Euripides on 11 September 1916 for France.  Stanley’s brother William Frederick enlisted on 16 July 1915 and Albert on 10 May 1917.

Arriving in Plymouth, England on 26 October 1916, Sydney spent the next two months in England before proceeding to France in December.  The 5th Battalion was moving toward Belgium when Stanley joined them.  In March 1917, Sydney was hospitalised with dermatitis for over three weeks.  

At the beginning of October 1917, plans were afoot for the third operation in the Ypres offensive.  In the early hours of 4 October 1917, twelve allied divisions were involved in the Battle of Broodseinde and that is where Stanley lost his life. A shell killed him instantly and he was buried in the trench where he fell.

According to Stanley’s brother William when applying for a war gratuity, during the war the boys’ crippled mother Mary Ann was bedridden.  She eventually died in Hamilton in 1920. 

Stanley had a tree planted  in his memory along Hamilton’s Anzac Avenue.

ONLINE RESOURCES

Australian War Memorial – 5th Australian Infantry Battalion

Australian War Memorial – Battle of Broodseinde Ridge

Australian War Memorial – Roll of Honour – Stanley Walton Davies

Australian War Memorial – WW1 Embarkation Roll – Stanley Walton Davies

Commonwealth War Graves Commission – WW1 Service Record – Stanley Walton Davies   

Discovering Anzacs – WW1 Service Record – Stanley Walton Davies

Newspaper articles from Trove – Stanley Walton Davies

The AIF Project – Stanley Walton Davies