SERVICE NO: 2792
YEAR OF BIRTH: 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH: Tahara
DATE OF ENLISTMENT: 22 November 1916
PLACE OF ENLISTMENT: Melbourne
AGE AT ENLISTMENT: 31
UNIT: 38th Battalion 6th Reinforcement
EMBARKED: 16 December 1916
TROOP SHIP: HMAT A7 Medic
FATE: Killed in Action – 4 October 1917 – Passchendaele Ridge
Born in 1885 at Tahara, Edmund Dohle was a son of Hermann Dohle and Ernestina Sawert. He went to school at Tahara State School then farmed at the family farm Wannonvale at Tahara, He played cricket for Tahara Federals. Around 1914, Edmund moved to Strathkellar east of Hamilton.
Edmund enjoyed horseracing and owned several horses. One horse he bred and raced was Skyline with much success. Trained by Hamilton trainer James Agnew, Skyline won the Coleraine Trial Hurdle Race, the Hamilton Great Western Steeplechase, and Casterton Spring Steeplechase in 1914. At the end of 1914,, Edmunds’ brother Alfred enlisted and left Australia in May 1915 with the 13th Light Horse Regiment.
Edmund continued racing Skyline 1915 his successes included the Casterton Autumn Steeplechase, Hamilton Summer Steeplechase, Hamilton Dundas Steeplechase, Penshurst Steeplechase, and the Mount Gambier South-EasternSteeplechase. Skyline was set to run in the Great Eastern Steeplechase at Oakbank, South Australia in 1916 but an injury sidelined him. In July 1916, news came through that Alfred had died of pneumonia in France.
It was a tradition of the Mount Gambier Racing Club that the winning owner of the South-Eastern Steeple at the Winter Steeplechase donate a shield to hang in the racing club’s members’ room. The Dohle brothers’ Skyline won the race in 1915. Since Edmund and Alfred had both lost their lives, in 1918 the racing club purchased a shield in memory of the brothers.
In 1921, Edmund’s body was exhumed from the place he was buried when he fell. There was no cross marking the grave but his identity discs confirmed it was him. He was reburied in the Tyne Cot Cemetery in Belgium.
Edmund’s father Herman Dohle died in 1930 and mother Ernestine in 1938.
Edmund Dohle is remembered on the Christ Church Anglican Church Roll of Honour.
ONLINE SOURCES
Australian War Memorial – Roll of Honour – Edmund Dohle
Australian War Memorial- WW1 Embarkation Roll – Edmund Dohle
Commonwealth War Graves Commission – Tyne Cot Cemetery, Belgium – Edmund Dohle
Discovering Anzacs – WW1 Service Record – Edmund Dohle
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