Percival Edgar Clifton

Percy was born at Turvey, Bedfordshire in England on the 18th of January 1891, to William Arthur and Charlotte Lavinia (née Turner) Clifton. He was the eldest of three children. On the 28th of June 1913, he departed London for Australia on board the S.S. Norseman.

The 1911 Census of England and Wales records that Percy was working as a gardener and living with his parents and 16 year-old sister, Florence, Rose Cottage, Mill Green in Turvey.

Percy was 23 years old at the time he enlisted in Sydney, NSW, on the 26th of August 1914. Although he had been living at Cudgewa, Victoria, he gave his address at enlistment as the People’s palace, Park Street, Sydney, NSW.

The battalion embarked on HMAT A14 Euripides at Sydney on the 20th of October 1914. Once outside the Heads it met heavy seas. Six days later it sailed into King George’s Sound at Albany, Western Australia, where it waited there for five days, awaiting the arrival of other transports and escorts. On the first day of November 1914, the first convoy sailed out of the Sound.It consisted of thirty-six transports and the escorts HMAS Sydney and Melbourne, HMS Minotaur and the Japanese light cruiser HIJMS Ibuki. The convoy arrived at Suez on the 30th of November 1914. It took four days for the convoy to pass through the Suez Canal, arriving at Alexandria at 1100 hours on the 3rd of December. The troops disembarked and moved off to their training camps at Mena, just outside of Cairo and next to the pyramids.

For the next few months Percy would be involved in many training exercises at all levels of organisation, platoon to Brigade. On April the 3rd, the battalion entrained at Cairo for Alexandria. The following day they embarked on HMT Lake Michigan and sailed at 0100 hours the following day. Three days later they arrived at Mudros Bay on the Island of Lemnos.

April the 24th saw all of the battalions embarking on troop ships. The 4th Battalion arrived off the coast of what would become ANZAC Cove at 0400 hours on the morning of the 25th of April 1915. Upon disembarking the battalion was sent to support the 8th Battalion on the right, or southern, end of the Anzac positions. The following day, the battalion was involved in a general advance however, due to heavy artillery barrages, were forced back to their original positions. In early May, Percy injured his ankle and spent a little over two weeks in hospital back in Alexandria before returning to Gallipoli on the 17th of May. Percy found the battalion in the trenches occupying McLaurin’s Hill. Named after Colonel H N McLaurin, the Brigadier of the 1st Australian Infantry Brigade who was killed leading a charge on the day two days after the landing, the hill was a prominent position just south of Courtney’s and Steele’s posts. Two days after arriving Percy was involved in repelling a strong Turkish attack which resulted in them experiencing heavy casualties. So heavy were the casualties that the Turks attempted to arrange an impromptu armistice. By the 24th the Allied command had agreed to the armistice to allow the burial of the many dead, some who had been there since the first few days of the landing.

On the 6th of August the 4th Battalion, of which Percy was part of B Company, formed up at 1515 hours in preparation for the attack on Lonesome Pine. When the attack was launched at 1730 hours, B Company had initially been kept as the Battalion reserve. During the course of that day, B Company moved into the trenches at Lone Pine. It was here, between the 6th and 9th of August, that Percy was killed in action. His body was not formally recovered and it is thought that he was buried in an unknown grave at Lone Pine.

As fate would have it, the ship that took Percy to Australia, the 10750 ton S.S. Norseman, was torpedoed and sunk in Mudros Harbour, only 100 kilometres from Gallipoli, in 1917.

Percy is remembered on the Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, the Turvey War Memorial, Bedfordshire, England and the Corryong War Memorial. For his service during the First World War, he was awarded the 1914-1915 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.