Contributed by Ron Inglis, October 2021:
Motor Mechanic and Driver Alwyn Ernest Dawes was 19 years and 2 months when he enlisted at the Roseberry Camp in Sydney’s eastern suburbs on 2 May 1916. He embarked for overseas service 16 days later, arriving in Britain on 27 July 1916. Private Dawes proceeded to France in September 1916 and he remained there for the next seven months. During this time, Dawes spent four months in various hospitals in France suffering myalgia.
On 15 April 1917, Dawes received a serious shrapnel wound to the leg and he was transported back to the 1st Birmingham War Hospital in the United Kingdom. He spent over a year in Britain and he acquired several offences against his name during this time: Neglect to obey orders whilst on the march, AWL 12 days and AWL 2 days. In total, he forfeited 34 days’ pay.
On recovering from his wounds, and having a month of treatment for Syphilis, Dawes returned to the 2nd Battalion at the end of July 1918. Fifteen days later Dawes received a gunshot wound to the back on 15 August 1918. He died of wounds the next day and was buried in the Daours Communal Cemetery Extension, west of the town of Corbie in the valley of the Somme. Dawes had been in the AIF for over two years, with front-line service time of around five months.
Dawes’ connection to Auburn appears to be via his mother, Mrs Louisa Dawes, who lived temporarily at 179 North Parade, Auburn, from 11 May 1918. It is presumed she put his name forward to the Auburn War Memorial committee. For his gravestone, she chose the inscription: DIED IN JESUS.
Dawes had been working in the far west of the state, as a death notice in a local newspaper says ‘He was attached to the Cycle Corps of the 2nd Battalion and left Nyngan for the front in May, 1916. … A good, kind-hearted son, his death is much lamented by his poor aged mother’.
See: ‘Our Brave Boys on the Battle Fields’, The Cumberland Argus & Fruitgrowers Advocate, Sat, 14 September 1918, p10.
Alwyn Dawes is honoured on the following memorials in Australia:
- Auburn War Memorial
- Municipality of Auburn 1914-1919 Honour Roll
- Nyngan and District First and Second World Wars Memorial
- Roll of Honour Australian War Memorial Canberra
His decorations:
- British War Medal
- 1914-20 Victory Medal
