Charles Fisher Bates

Service number: 1060

Rank: Private

Unit: 1st Battalion

Service: Australian Army

Date of death:

Cemetery or memorial details:

War Grave Register notes:

Source: National Archives Australia

Charles Bates stated he was 21 at enlistment on the 24th September 1914. Charles served in Alexandria, Egypt; France and Belgium. His mother Elizabeth Bates lived at “Broadwater”, Fairy Bower, Manly. He was a labourer by trade. He had been in trouble with the law for theft earlier in 1914, aged 19.[1]

Charles sailed on the S/S Benalla for England on machine-gun detail. He was wounded with gunshot wounds to head and chest on 9th July, 1915. Charles was again admitted to hospital with a foreign body in his back on 14th February 1916 then again with gunshot wounds on 23rd April 1916 and 3rd May 1916. While in service he married a Miss Jessie Marie Bond who was 19 years old at the time, on 27th August 1919. He sailed from Cape Town, South Africa on the Nestor on 16th December 1919 and was discharged on 7th February 1920. A Charles Fisher Bates was in trouble for theft at Albury in 1921 and in Tasmania in 1924.

[1] Evening News 6 May 1914.