Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

04/08/1915

Place of Enlistment

Oakleigh, Victoria

Gender

Male

Other Name(s)

Known as 'Norman'

Place of Birth

Prahran, Victoria

Address (at enlistment)

Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT

Occupation

Grocer

Next of Kin

Son of Frederick William and Mary J. Carnall of the Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT

Burial Place

France 207 Mericourt L'Abbe Communal Cemetery Extension

Service Number

2006

Final Rank

Private

Final Unit

29 Battalion AIF

Died (killed in action) at Morlancourt near Albert, France, on 23 July 1918 aged 20 years

AWM Roll of Honour Memorial Panel 115, Canberra ACT
St. John the Baptist's Church, Canberra, Roll of Honour, in Frederick W. Robinson, Canberra's First Hundred Years, Sydney, W.C. Penfold, p. 63 (where he is recorded as 'Carnell, Private W.N.')
Large stone tablet on outside of northern wall of St. John's Church, Reid ACT (as Carnell, W.N.)

Norman Carnall's parents lived at the Royal Military College, Duntroon where his father worked as a storeman from 1915 until 1930. According to his nephew Max Hill, Norman sought to enlist three months prior to his seventeenth birthday which coincided with his family's move to Duntroon. He lived briefly with his family at Duntroon before embarking overseas.

He served with the 29th Battalion in France from June 1916. Four weeks later his battalion took part in the Battle of Fromelles. By October his unit had transferred to the Somme and Norman was hospitalised in November 1916 with trench feet. He spent some time in England for treatment before rejoining the 29th Battalion in Belgium in October 1917 near Ypres. By April 1918 he was stationed near the Somme River where he witnessed the demise of the German air ace, Baron Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron). On 23 July 1918 he was killed in action near Morlancourt (on the Somme) by a shell exploding in his trench while he was waiting in reserve. Carnall was buried at Mericourt L'Abbe Communal Cemetery Extension, 4¼ miles north east of Corbie. His nephew Edwin Carnall served in World War 2.

Description - height 5 feet 8½ inches, weight 128½ pounds, chest 33-35 inches, fair complexion, blue eyes, fair hair, Baptist.

AWM Roll of Honour Database
AWM Roll of Honour Circular
AWM Collections Record : P08492.001
First World War Nominal Roll
First World War Unit Embarkation Rolls
St. John the Baptist's Church, Canberra, Roll of Honour, in Frederick W. Robinson, Canberra's First Hundred Years, Sydney, W.C. Penfold, p. 63 (which includes a 'Carnell, Private W.N.')
Peter Procter, Biographical Register of Canberra and Queanbeyan, Canberra, Heraldry and Genealogy Society of Canberra, 2001 (p.42)
Ross Howarth, 'Civilians employed at the Royal Military College of Australia, Duntroon, from 1911 to 1931', RMC Duntroon, November 2000
Max Hill letter in edition 417 of the Newsletter of the Canberra & District Historical Society
Image courtesy of Max Hill
The Canberra Times - 23 July 1929