The first day.
Norman Aberdeen was keen. After all, he’d served three years in the senior cadets. When War broke out and recruits were called for to fight for King and Country the nineteen year old apprentice engineer from Station Street, North Carlton was quick to make it to the drill hall and sign up. His regimental number, 75, proves he was one of the early arrivals. He was one of many Princes Hill State School ex-students to “answer the call” promptly.
Norman enlisted in the 7th Battalion on the 17th August 1914. On the 18th he was passed medically fit and by the 10th September he was appointment acting Lance Corporal. Two months later he and his Battalion sailed for Europe on the “Hororata”. The training in Australia was supplemented by further training in Egypt while plans were drawn up for the Dardanelles campaign.
Tragically his war was a short one. Norman Aberdeen was killed on the first day of the landing at Anzac Cove, 25th April 1914.
Where he fell is not known. He was listed as missing. He may have been blown apart by an artillery shell or his body may have been washed away into the sea. But in the confusion of that awful initial assault, nobody, it seems, recorded what became of him.
Sadly for his mother and father in North Carlton he was listed as “missing” until in May 1916 a Court of Enquiry convened “In the Field” in France determined that he had been “killed in action”. A letter was sent to his parents. Any hopes they may have clung to must have died with this news.
The next year his “effects”, a small parcel of his possessions, was returned to his family. Imagine how they must have felt as they unpacked these items, last touched by Norman more than two years before:
“3 sketch books, 4 military books, comb, 1 pair gloves, 2 pair cork soles, 3 pair mittens, 9 handkerchiefs, chain, whistle, 5 keys, purse, cards, small note book, negatives, letters.”
Fifty years later, in 1967, the pain of the family grief and their frustration at knowing so little was still evident in these lines written by Norman’s brother, addressed to the officer in charge of army records (sic):
Dear Sir,
I wish to apply for the New Anzac medal of my only Brother whose parents have passed on. My Brother’s name was L Cpl. NORMAN EDWARD ABERDEEN 7 BN. A.I.F. His regimental number I think was 75 he was reported missing on the day of the landing at Gallipoli + to this day nothing has been heard of him. If I remember rightly he enlisted the first day volunteers was called for. Thanking you
B. L. Aberdeen, Warragul