CHARLES Bathersby was born on May 28, 1886 in Inverell, one of 13 children.
He went to Inverell Public School and worked as a boundary rider on a sheep station in Tingha until the start of the war. Aged 28 he enlisted in the A.I.F. His Regimental Number was 94, and he was recruited into ‘A’ Squadron, 12th Light Horse Regiment, 4th Brigade, as a trooper, at Holdsworthy.
There were four Light Horse Brigades, each consisted of three regiments, the fourth made up of the 10th, 11th and 12th. He sailed for Egypt in mid-June 1915 and arrived on July 23.
The regiments were involved in intensive training with more than 20,000 Light Horsemen preparing to engage the Turkish Forces.
The landing on Gallipoli had incurred huge losses for the Allies in the first 24 hours — more than 2000 dead in the A.I.F. alone. There were no reserve infantry in Egypt, so the Australian Military had to send several thousand Lighthorse-men without their horses to fight as infantry at Gallipoli.
On August 23, 1915, Charles’s regiment, the 12th Light Horse, sailed from Egypt to the island of Lemnos from where they were shipped to Gallipoli, landing on August 29.
Charles’s squadron was added to the 1st Lighthorse Regiment, as the 1st had incurred huge losses from a force of 800 to 222. They were engaged with the Turkish Forces right from landing, incurring heavy casualties until the withdrawal.
The casualties from diseases plagued the Allied Forces to the extent they almost equalled deaths and wounds. Charles caught an enteric infection that caused the evacuation of hundreds of troops. He was evacuated on October 3, 1915, to Lemnos, then Egypt on December 4, 1915. He must have been bad as in January, 1916 he was shipped back to Australia.
By February, 1916 there were only 88 Troopers left in the 12th. The casualty rate was 60 per cent on Gallipoli: killed or wounded in action, dying of wounds or illness, or missing. Charles died at home in West Ryde in 1966 aged 80.
Doug is travelling to Gallipoli this year for the centenary.