Wongarbon NSW
1750
45th Battalion,
Tooraweenah Kookaburra
KIA 13.10.1917
Private Leslie Pearson was a 34 year old labourer of Wongarbon, NSW when he enlisted at Tooraweenah on 12 January 1916 and marched to Bathurst with the Tooraweenah Kookaburra Recruitment March. The medical examination described him as 5’6: tall,137lbs (62kgs), chest 33’- 35 ½”, dark complexion, brown eyes, black hair and no distinctive marks. His religion was Church of England. His mother, Sarah Pearson was his Next of Kin as his father was deceased.
After training at Bathurst he embarked at Sydney on the HMAT Ceramic on 14 April 1916 with the 45th Battalion. After further training at Tel-el-Kebir in Egypt, Leslie embarked at Alexandria for France, arriving in Marseille on the ‘Kinfauns Castle.’
The unit was based at Outtersteene, France, when on 28 June 1916, Leslie was treated at the 12th Casualty Clearing Station, the 14th Stationary Hospital at Boulogne and then to England for Deafness. He remained at the Dustin War Hospital (now St Crispins Hospital), at Northamptonshire until 26 July 1916 then admitted to Woodcote Park Convalescent Hospital at Epsom. On 30 September 1916 Leslie was classed as B2, this meant he was temporarily unfit for general service for 6 months.
In December 1916 he was back in France and on the front in January, 1917. In February, after 6 weeks in the cold damp trenches he had acquired Trench Feet and was evacuated through the 3rd Casualty Clearing Station to England at Southwark Hospital. Once again he was classed B1A, and unfit for 6 months. He was transferred to the 63rd Battalion and was based at Windmill Camp at Perham Downs, England.
On 22 September 1917 he was back with the 45th Battalion in France near Guedecourt. He was one of 44 reinforcements to arrive that day in time to experience the Battle of Polygon Wood and the battle of Passchendaele.
Leslie was killed in action on 13 October 1917 at Passchendaele by a shell while cutting trench lines. He was killed with three others and it was impossible to bury him. L/C BJ Marony 3675 stated he was a ‘quiet decent fellow and well-liked. Tall, dark moustache and we called him Les’. Leslie was one of 38 killed, 139 wounded and 10 missing in the three days of fighting at Broodseinde.
His widowed mother received his British War Medal, Victory Medal, Memorial Scroll, Memorial Plaque and the publication, “Where the Australians Rest’
Private Leslie Pearson has no known grave and is commemorated on the Menin Gate Panel 27, the Australian War Memorial Panel No 140, the Wongarbon School War Memorial and a family commemoration in the Wongarbon Cemetery.
Photo from Find A Grave, Ancestry