10 September 2013

Albert McNamee

1030 Temporary Sergeant Albert Leslie McNamee served in the 6th Light Horse Regiment. He initially joined the regiment in October 1915 at Gallipoli and later fought in Palestine. In 1917 he received a gunshot wound and was admitted to hospital. In March 1918 he was awarded the Military Medal. Unfortunately, his service record does not detail for which action the medal was awarded. Albert also served during WWII before dying in 1951. Albert's medal entitlement would have been at least:
The Military Medal,
The 1914-15 Star,
The British War Medal,
The Victory Medal (which I was sent),
TheWar Medal (WWII)
The Australian Service Medal 1939-45

The search for Albert's turned out to be very straight forward. He was from a very small town in NSW and from the NSW Births, Deaths and Marriage records it didn't appear that he married. Using the same records I established that his brother was named Walter Clifford McNamee. I then took the search to the electoral rolls and worked out that in 1936 Walter lived in a rural community in the same district that Albert came from. A search of the White Pages revealed that there was a person by the name of  McNamee listed in that town. 15 minutes after starting the search for Albert's family I was speaking to the wife of his nephew. She was able to confirm that Albert did not marry. Albert's great nephew is his closest living relative and I'll post the medal to the family shortly. Thanks to John S who sent me the medal in the first place.


Update 11 Sep 13
Albert's MM citation is as follows:
"For bravery on the battle field. Trooper McNamee was in charge of a section on observation duty, and under heavy fire he brought the guns to bear on the enemy, which enabled his squadron to take up a position".

5 comments:

  1. Congratulations ... you seem to be on a roll of late :)

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  2. Hi Glyn,

    You certainly are on a roll, and as a tribute to your good work I thought I would see if I could discover the act for which Sergeant McNamee received his Military Medal. The medal was received:

    "For bravery on the battle field. Trooper McNamee was in charge of a section on observation duty, and under heavy fire he brought the guns to bear on the enemy, which enabled his squadron to take up a position".

    The Unit War Diary gives an outline of the action in which the 6 Light Horse was engaged at the end of March 1918.

    Best wishes,

    Lenore

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  3. Thank you Lenore. I've added the citation in to the post.
    Glyn

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  4. Hi Glyn ..I am the Great- Niece of Albert Leslie ... As my father passed away just over two years ago ...he would of been so proud to receive the medal ...he told many great stories of Albert, his other Uncle John Clarence and his dad Walter Clifford...the three brothers all served in the war ... Prior to dads passing I was able to show him a photo of Albert that was in the archives ...he was very pleased... his favourite story was that Albert had tiny feet so could wear shoes from men's 5's to 11's by stuffing them with newspaper ...lucky for us our name is not common ....The medal was received by my mother today ...Thank you so much ...Kind Regards Mary Lawler (nee McNamee)

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  5. Hello Mary and thank you for your very kind comment.
    Glyn

    ReplyDelete