Wednesday, 16th February 1916

The first group of Coo-ees embarked from Sydney for overseas active service, on the HMAT Ballarat A70.

HMAT Ballarat A70, 18/2/1916. Photograph from the AWM Collection PB0182.

These included: Joseph ARMSTRONG, Percy George BROWN, Charles William Gordon CONROY,  Edwin Joseph FULLER, John MARTIN, Donald Singleton STEWART, John TARLINGTON,  John William THOMPSON,  William Charles WALKER, Joseph Patrick WALLIS, and Colin David WREN.

It was reported in the Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate that Percy George Brown had written “The first batch of the Gilgandra “Coo-ees” to leave for the front will sail at the end of the present week. About 15 men, including four who enlisted at Dubbo, have been transferred into an earlier reinforcement of the same battalion, which the rest of the “Coo-ees” are in”.[1]

[1] ‘Our Soldiers’, The Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate, 4 February 1916, p. 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article77604424