PENNEFATHER, Charles Francis


Service Number: 466
Rank: Not known
Enlistment Unit: 3rd Light Horse
Transferred Unit: Not known or not applicable
Date of Enlistment: 21 August 1914
Enlistment Age: 41 years 4 months
Fate of person: Returned to Australia

Biographical Details

Charles was one of the oldest to enlist in 1914. He was forty one and a veteran of the South African Wars (1899-1902). He returned to Tasmania from South Africa early in August 1914. In October he left Hobart on the Geelong for Egypt and started training at the Mena Camp, Cairo. He was not with the initial landings at Gallipoli but joined them early in August. His health deteriorated, at first with conjunctivitis and then later with general debility. He was admitted to hospital in Alexandria but was well enough to re-join his regiment in March 1916. Unfortunately a bout of bronchitis with debility developed into cardiac dilation and he was invalided back to Tasmania to be discharged in January 1917. He continued his military associations as an area officer for enlistments, Launceston and had close ties with the RSL. At the end of the 1920s he moved to Brisbane for medical reasons, but returned to Tasmania early in 1932 and died on 19 July at the Hobart Repatriation Hospital.

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