Enlistment Address
North Sydney, NSW
Service Number
4732
Unit
13th Battalion
Comment
Gilgandra Coo-ee
Fate
RTA 8.5.1919
Information
SIDNEY BENNETT 4732
1 Photo courtesy of I & J McDonald |
Sidney was a 24 year old labourer when he enlisted in Gilgandra on 9 October 1915 and marched off to Sydney in the famous recruitment Cooee March.
He is described as 5’9” tall, weighed 11st 5lb (72kgs); dark complexion; dark hair and dark eyes. His parents Henry and Eva lived at ‘Hornsey’ David St, Nth Sydney NSW.
The recruits trained at Liverpool for four months and most of the Cooees embarked on 8 March 1916 from Sydney on the ‘Star of England’. In Egypt some of the Cooees stayed with the 13th Battalion, while others, including Sidney, joined the 45th Battalion and left for France. They arrived in Marseilles in June 1916 and faced the Battle of Pozieres in the Somme. Sidney was promoted in the field to Lance Corporal 24 August 1916.
He was admitted to hospital with a gun shot wound to his left forearm, on 26 September 1916. After a month at Bishop Knoll Hospital in England, he was granted leave and when he returned in November 1916, he was sent to Warhem Command Depot (a military convalescent unit).
By May 1917, he had been hospitalised several times for scabies ( a common problem in overcrowded, unhygienic conditions) and he was due to return to France in July when he was again AWL. He was apprehended in London in January 1918 and was detained for 9 months at Lewes Detention Barracks. His father was notified of the cancelled allotment because of a ‘breach of military discipline…’ He wrote asking for an explanation of ‘in what way the lad has brought disgrace to his country and his family?’
In September, his sentence was reduced and he was sent back to France to the 54th Battalion in time for the 54th’s last major battle of the war at St Quentin Canal, between 29 September and 2 October 1918.
On 11 October the 54th Battalion ceased to exist as a separate entity when it was merged with the 56th Battalion to form the 54/56th Battalion
Sidney returned to Australia on the ‘Devanha’ 8 May 1919 and was discharged in Sydney 19 July 1919. The British War Medal and Victory Medal were issued.
Sidney married Doris Knapman at Bankstown in 1926 and they had a daughter, Kathleen Eva Bennett.
Charles Hunt, a fellow Cooee was visiting Sidney and Doris in Crow’s Nest when Charles died in a motor car accident on 17 February 1930. Sidney was driving at the time.
Sidney died on 11 January 1961 aged 70 years and is buried at Northern Suburbs Memorial Gardens Nort Ryde. East Terrace 3 Wall 2.
Sidney is commemorated on the Coo-ee Gateway and the Virtual War Memorial.