confirmed
Born: 12 July 1891
Died: 21 July 1958
Wounded at Gallipoli. Discharged, and returned to Australia.
Attended NSW Aviation School Richmond No 3 Course, awarded Australian Aero Club Certificate No. 90 in September 1917. Embarked "Euripides" (as one of 12 graduates from Richmond) in October 1917. Enlisted RFC, 26 December 1917.
Source: Australian Society of WWI Aero Historians
Lewis George Cole was the second son of Stanley Llewellyn Cole and his wife Isabella Jane (nee Moorley). He was born 12 Jul 1891 at Glebe NSW.
He enlisted on 19th August 1914 into the 1st Battalion AIF. At the time he was an engineering draughtsman. On 5 April 1915, he boarded the HMAT (His Majesty's Australian Transport) Minnewaska and proceeded to Egypt.
Lew was wounded in the second or third wave of the Gallipoli landings on 25 April 1915 and returned to Egypt with a wound to the shoulder. While recuperating there, he was found to have a Hernia which was operated on in August 1915, then he was returned to Australia on HMAT Euripides on 15 Sept 1915 and discharged on medical grounds.
But this is not the end of the story for Lew. He was able to join the third course of the NSW Aviation School at Richmond NSW. He won his pilots certificate and under agreement with the British government, left for England in October 1917. I understand the pilots made their own way there.
Lew ended up at a training ground in Scotland, and while there, must have paid a visit to Perth, Scotland, to the family of his sister's late fiance, David Stewart, who was KIA at Lone Pine Gallipoli on 7 Aug 1915.
I don't think Lew ever flew in the War Zones, but he did maintain contact with the Stewart family and married Amelia Stewart (David's sister) on 27 Jul 1918 in Luncarty Perth.
Lewis and Amelia (Amy) had only one child, David Llewellyn Cole, who was born in Scotland in 1919 before they returned to Australia.
Source: marquette (Genealogists' Forum)
His father Stanley Cole was an Alderman of Glebe Council for over 20 years and was its mayor five times.
- Service number
- Ranks
- Birth record
- Death record
- Address
- Relationships
- Organisations
- Main sources
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- Cole Lewis George : SERN 902 : POB Sydney NSW : POE Randwick NSW : NOK F Cole Stanley L (item)
- AUSTRALIAN LOSSES. FURTHER CASUALTY LISTS ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH (newspaper article)
- Genealogists' Forum - Lewis George Cole (webpage)
- PERSONAL. Flight-Lieutenant Lewis George Cole, youngest son of Alderman S. L. Cole, of the Glebe, has obtained a commission in the Royal Flying Corps in France. (newspaper article)
- Lewis George Cole (Group portrait of members of the third course of trainee pilots at the NSW State Aviation School) (photograph)
- Cole Lewis George : SERN 902 : POB Sydney NSW : POE Randwick NSW : NOK F Cole Stanley L (webpage)
- COLE LEWIS GEORGE : Service Number - 509 : Date of birth - 12 Jul 1893 : Place of birth - Unknown : Place of enlistment - Unknown : Next of Kin - COLE AMELIA [World War 2] (webpage)
- Name Cole, Lewis George Date of Birth: 12 July 1891 [UK National Archives] (webpage)
- Cadet Lewis George COLE Royal Flying Corps. [UK National Archives] (webpage)
- AUSTRALIAN LOSSES. FURTHER CASUALTY LISTS ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH 16 DEAD; 338 WOUNDED The Defence Department yesterday issued the Eleventh and Twelfth Lists of Casualties sustained by the Australian Forces in the operations at the Dardanelles. (newspaper article)
- MEN OF THE DARDANELLES. PERSONAL NOTES. LANCE CORPORAL L. G. COLE. (newspaper article)
- PERSONAL. VICE-REGAL. [Commission RFC] (newspaper article)
- Marriage Notice (newspaper article)
- Commemorations
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- COLE L. G. on the South Face of the Mosman War Memorial