Miller Street, Gilgandra, NSW
4880
13th Battalion, 15th Reinforcement
Gilgandra Coo-ee
Returned to Australia 23.4.1919
Private Victor Quinton 4880
Victor was a 19 year old labourer who was born in Gilgandra to Francis and Elizabeth Quinton in 1896. He enlisted with the Coo-ees in Gilgandra on 9 October 1915. He stated he had no previous service. His nest of kin was his mother, Elizabeth Lumley of Melrose, Biddon, Gilgandra NSW
His medical examination was completed by Dr Peet and described Victor as 5’4 1/2”, dark complexion, dark hair, blue green eyes and a long scar on the outer side of left leg and four moles above his ankle.
Victor and the other Coo-ees marched to Sydney and trained at Liverpool before they embarked for Egypt on the ‘Star of Victoria’ on 8 March. 1916 They arrived in Alexandria on 11 April 1916 and by the end of May Victor was attached to the 4th Pioneer Training Battalion. On 6 June he left Alexandria for Marseilles on the ‘Ionian’, arriving 15 June 1916 and taken on strength with the 4th Pioneer Battalion on 22 July 1916.
On 5 August 1916, he was reported as ‘Missing in Action’ but he had been buried by a shell exploding in the communication trench that he was building near Pozieres and was evacuated with shell shock. He was back with his unit on 11 August. 1916 until early December; when he was admitted to hospital with two other soldiers suffering with ‘gastric influenza’. He was sent to England for treatment and convalescence and never returned to France.
On 24 January 1917 he was transferred to the Australian Army Ordnance Corps, which was concerned with supply and administration,
The transport ship ‘Nevasa’ brought Victor home to Sydney on 23 April 1919 and he was discharged on 12 June 1919. Victor was issued the Victory Medal and the British War Medal and is commemorated on the Coo-ee Memorial Gateway and the Virtual War Memorial.
After the war, fellow Coo-ee, William Alston married Victor’s sister, Ivy, and Victor married May Lumley in 1930. May died on 1 July 1973 aged 70 years and Victor died 20 days later, aged 77 years. They are buried in Coonabarabran Cemetery