The AIF Project

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Taken on strength of 60th Bn, Tel el Kebir, 26 February 1916.

Transferred to 58th Bn, 21 March 1916; taken on stength 58th Bn, Tel-el-Kebir, 21 March 1916.

Embarked Alexandria to join British Expeditionary Force, 17 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, France, 23 June 1916.

Posted missing, 19 July 1916.

Court of Enquiry, held in the field, 1 September 1917, pronounced fate as 'Killed in Action, 19 July 1916'.

Note on bottom of B.103, 'buried in vicinity of Fleurbaix'.

Statement, Red Cross File No 530705, 3561 Pte R. LOWERSON, A Company, 38th [actually 58th] Bn (patient, 1st Australian Auxiliary hospital, Harefield, England), 8 November 1916: 'At Fleurs he was in the same part of the trench as I was and was blown to pieces by a shell on the 11th. of July at night. He was in the same Company (A) s I was and I think he came from Ascot in Victoria.' Note by interviewer: 'Witness did not actually see him [h]it, but said that after the explosion he was missing.'

Second statement, 2206 Lance Corporal L.A. MILLS, A Company, 58th Bn, 28 February 1917: 'I was L/Cpl. of the section he was in. He was with me in the charge at Fleurbaix on 19th. July. We got across to within about 30 yards of the German trenches and then the order came to retire. I was wounded. He was with me at the time and talked to me. That is the last I know of him. He could not be a prisoner as we did not reach the German lines, and the Germans did not come across the ground he lay on. I crawled in that night. He has been missing ever since. He must have been killed.'