Contributed by Ron Inglis, October 2021
Wallace Harry Sales, 26, was married to Nellie Sales of Chestnut Road, Auburn. He was a painter, a member of the Auburn Methodist Church and an ex-student of Auburn Public School.
Sales enlisted at the RAS Showgrounds, Sydney, on 8 May 1916. He embarked on the Anchises three months later, along with fellow Auburn Memorial man Private Edgar Atkinson. Arriving in Plymouth, United Kingdom, on 11 October 1916, Sales spent two months in training camps on the Salisbury Plain. He crossed to France and was taken on strength of the 30th Battalion, 5th Australian Division, on 23 December 1916.
Sales served for 10 months with the 5th Division, before being wounded with gas poisoning in the terrible battle of Passchendaele in Belgium. After almost four months recovery in the UK, Sales returned to the Western Front and served for another seven months with his battalion, before being killed in action on 8 August 1918.
Three other Auburn Memorial men were killed in action in the first 24 hours of the British offensive of 8 August 1918: Lieutenant George Haig, Corporal James Stewart, and Gallipoli veteran Private Leslie Power. All four men had been in the AIF for more than two years, Haig and Power for more than three years. Sales had survived well over a year in areas of danger.
Sales, along with two other Auburn Memorial men, Lance Corporal Kay and Private Harold Stevens, was buried in the Heath Cemetery, Harbonnières, the military cemetery in France containing the highest number of Australians (910 out of 1499 burials are Australian). Almost all of these were casualties of the British offensive of August-September 1918.
Wallace Sales is honoured on the following memorials in Australia:
- Auburn War Memorial
- Municipality of Auburn 1914-1919 Honour Roll
- Auburn Boys Public School Great War Honour Roll
- Auburn Public School First World War Honour Roll
- Roll of Honour Australian War Memorial Canberra
His decorations:
- Victory Medal
- British War Medal 1914-20
