b. 16/08/1891 Beaconsfield, Tasmania, Australia. d. 19/10/1963 Torquay, Queensland.
Bernard Sidney Gordon (1891-1963) was born on 16th August 1891 at Beaconsfield, Tasmania, Australia. His father, Charles, was a cabman and hotel owner. He married Mary Agnes Roland on 26th January 1887 in Tasmania. She and Charles had five siblings. As a child, Bernard was given the family name of “Barney”. Sadly his eldest brother Charles died in an accident in 1909.
He was educated at Deloraine and Devonport in Tasmania. He was apprenticed to Mr J Robins as a cooper’s machinist at Beaconsfield and later moved to Townsville, Queensland, where he was in charge of remounts en route to India. He was a keen amateur rider, a horse breaker, sportsman and promoted cycling, racing, boxing and football. He won many amateur boxing tournaments, and also won the 100 and 200 yards championships at Launceston.
Bernard S Gordon
VC MM
Gordon enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force at Townsville on 27th September 1915. On 29th December 1915, he married Evelyn Catherine Lonergan. They had six children together – Aquain, Sylvia, Charles, Joan, Damien and Eileen. He joined the 41st Battalion as a private, embarking for overseas service on the Demosthenes on 16th May 1916. He arrived in Plymouth Devon on 20th July and moved to Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire. Illness meant that he spent the majority of the rest of the year in hospital. He finally embarked for the Western Front on 31st December and arrived in Etaples on 1st January 1917. He was frequently in trouble with the authorities often for going absent without leave.
On 2nd October 1917, he was wounded by shrapnel in the face and hand near Passchendaele, Belgium. He was admitted to No 10 Casualty Clearing Station and transferred to 14th General Hospital, Wimereux, France on 7th October. He did not rejoin his unit until 23rd November. Whilst on leave in England on 13th February 1918, he was found guilty of being drunk and was admonished. He rejoined the Battalion on 28th February, promoted to lance corporal on 8th June and was granted leave in Paris between 7th-21st July 1918.
On 8th August 1918 the 41st Battalion, as part of the 11th Infantry Brigade, was involved in an attack on Hamel, and Gordon was awarded the Military Medal for gallant conduct. He single handedly attacked a machine gun crew that was holding up his section, killing the crew and capturing the gun. Later in the day he stalked and killed an enemy sniper. He was later awarded the Victoria Cross, for ‘most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty on 26th-27th August, 1918, east of Bray’. In this action, the citation stated, Gordon displayed ‘a wonderful example of fearless initiative’. He led his section through heavy shell-fire to its objective, which he consolidated. ‘Single-handed he attacked an enemy machine-gun which was enfilading the company on his right, killed the man on the gun and captured the post, which contained one officer and ten men. He then cleaned up a trench, capturing twenty-nine prisoners and two machine-guns … Practically unaided, he captured, in the course of these operations, two officers and sixty-one other ranks, together with six machine-guns’.
Gordon was again wounded on 1st September while the battalion was advancing in the Mont St Quentin area. His left index finger was shattered by a bullet. The finger was later amputated. He returned to Australia in January 1919, and was discharged in Queensland in April. He ran a grocer’s shop at Clayfield but then took up a dairy farming and Jersey stud property, Lincolnfield, near Beaudesert, where he farmed for forty-three years. He was a popular man in any company, with a ready wit and a keen sense of humour, and was well known for his stories and anecdotes. In 1938 Evelyn died, and later that year, he married a widow, Caroline Edith Manley nee Victorsen at Ann Street Presbyterian Church, Brisbane. They had three children – Bernard, Caroline and David. In 1956 he attended the Victoria Cross centenary celebrations in London, and in 1960, in his honour, the Gordon Soldiers’ Club was opened at Cabarlah, Queensland.
Gordon remained at Lincolnfield until ill health forced him to move to Hervey Bay early in 1962. He had suffered for years from pulmonary tuberculosis. He died at his home in Torquay, Queensland, on 19th October 1963, and was cremated at Mount Thompson Crematorium, Brisbane with Methodist forms. His ashes were interred in Pinnaroo Lawn Cemetery, Albany Creek, Queensland. He was commemorated on the VC recipients plaque in Campbell, ACT, on the VC Memorial in Sydney, on the VC Memorial at Hobart Cenotaph, and with a VC commemorative stone at the National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas, Staffordshire.
In addition to his VC and MM, he was awarded the British War Medal 1914-20, Victory Medal 1914-19, George VI Coronation Medal 1937 and Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal 1953. The VC and the two coronation medals were sold by his granddaughter, Margaret Schofield, to Kerry Stokes, chairman of the Seven Network broadcasting corporation, at Bonhams in Sydney on 28th November 2006 for $AUS486,000. Stokes then presented the medals to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL, CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA.
BURIAL PLACE: MOUNT THOMPSON CREMATORIUM, BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA.
ASHES INTERRED AT PINNAROO LAWN CEMETERY, ALBANY CREEK, QUEENSLAND.
Acknowledgement:
Richard Yielding – Image of Mount Thompson Crematorium Plaque.
Steve Lee www.memorialstovalour.co.uk – Image of Gordon VC Medal Group at Australian War Memorial, Canberra.