Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

01/11/1915

Date of Discharge

02/05/1919

Place of Enlistment

Liverpool NSW

Gender

Male

Date of Birth

27/03/1898

Place of Birth

Booroomba via Tharwa ACT

Address (at enlistment)

McQuoid Street, Queanbeyan NSW (previously Tharwa ACT)

School(s) Attended

Narrabundah School

Occupation

Labourer

Next of Kin

Ellen Bell (mother), Queanbeyan NSW

Service Number

1705

Final Rank

Trooper

Final Unit

14 Light Horse Regiment AIF

Bert Bell was born on 27 March 1898 at Booroomba near Tharwa where his parents were employed by the McKeahnie family. His father died in 1908 from pneumonia when Bell and his entire family almost died from the disease as well - his mother would die during the influenza pandemic of 1919.

Bell enlisted on 14 August 1915 in Goulburn and arrived in Egypt with reinforcements for the 6th Light Horse Regiment in December, shortly after which he was hospitalised with mumps. Upon recovering he was attached to the 2nd Double Squadron at Serapeum in defence of the Suez Canal against an expected Turkish attack.

In February 1917 he was transferred to the 17th Company, Imperial Camel Corps which fought in the Second Battle of Gaza in April 1917. Bell was shot in the right thigh (just above the knee) in November 1917 when his unit were involved in the fight at Ras el Nagb, near Tel Khuweilfe in Palestine. Though he recovered he suffered an abscess on the wound the following March and was also hospitalised with bouts of diarrhoea and malaria. He returned to Australia in February 1919 and was discharged in May.

Bell lived in Glebe after the war and died on 16 December 1925. He was working on construction at the GPO in Sydney when he fell 80 feet and fractured his skull. He died in Sydney Hospital that night.

Description - height 5 feet 9 inches, weight 160 pounds, chest 34-36 inches, dark complexion, brown eyes, brown hair, Presbyterian.

Peter Procter, 'Biographical Register of Canberra and Queanbeyan', Canberra, Heraldry and Genealogy Society of Canberra, 2001 (p.12 - refer to his father John Bell's entry)
Lyall Gillespie, 'Early Education and Schools in the Canberra Region', 1999
Rex Cross, 'Bygone Queanbeyan', 1980
Our Queanbeyan 'Boys' No.2, Howard & Shearsby, Yass (postcard)
Queanbeyan Age - 3 November 1908, 10 January 1911, 11 February 1915, 15 October 1915, 21 December 1917
Sydney Morning Herald - 17 December 1925, 18 December 1925
St. Stephen's Presbyterian Church records (card index, Canberra & District Historical Society)
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)