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. Image courtesy of the Australian War Memorial. Image no. DA15720 https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/DA15720/
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