Raymond Stevens

Submitted by Mt Kembla Minin... on Sat, 30/09/2017 - 16:39

First Name:

Raymond

Last Name:

Stevens

Mother's Name:

Elizabeth Stevens nee Stanley

Father's Name:

Walter Stevens

Date Enlisted:

Wednesday, August 11, 1915

Rank at Enlistment:

Private

Rank at Discharge:

Private

Unit:

53rd Battalion

Service:

Infantry

Awards:

1914/1915 Star

British War Medal

Victory Medal

Place of Death:

Sydney

Cause of Death:

Result of a fall

Details:

Raymond Stevens (Service No 3439/ 3439A) was born in Orange, N.S.W. in 1877.

At enlistment Raymond was single, 33 years old, worked as a labourer and lived in Austinmer, N.S.W. He had served 14 months with N.S.W. Mounted Rifles, but it is unclear if Ray was spent with the Rifles when they served in South Africa.

Ray embarked from Sydney on board HMAT A14 Euripides with 3rd Battalion, 11th Reinforcement on 2nd November 1915. He arrived in Egypt in December 1915 and was transferred to 53rd Battalion on 16th February 1916. The battalion arrived in France on 28th March 1916 and Ray saw service on the Western Front with them.

He was returned to Australia in July 1917. After treatment for an abscess on his liver, Ray was discharged from the AIF on 28th November 1917, medically unfit, with a pension.

Ray died in sad circumstances in late May 1935. Newspaper reports of the death of a swaggie near his camp in Sydney named Raymond Stevens as a 63 year old returned soldier who had died from the effects of a fall about a week before his body was found.

Sources:

NAA: B2455, STEVENS R