ABELL, Nugent Edward

ABELL, Nugent Edward – A Southern Downs Veteran

CONFLICT : WWI
SERVICE NO : 6121
RANK : Private
UNIT : 15th Battalion
ENLISTMENT DATE : 11/12/1915
AGE : 30
PLACE OF ENLISTMENT : Brisbane, Queensland
PLACE OF BIRTH : Chester, England
RELIGION : Church of England
PRE-WAR OCCUPATION : Commercial Traveller
DATE OF DEATH : 12/03/1970
PLACE OF BURIAL : Mt Thompson, Queensland

MEMORIALS : Warwick Masonic Lodge Honor Roll 1914-1919, Annerley Stephens Shire Council Residents Honour Board, Ballarat Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial, Brisbane Albert Street Uniting Church Honour Roll

View this person’s Service File : ABELL, Nugent Edward

NOTES :

Born in England in 1884, Nugent Edward Abell was the third child of Edward Garland and Eliza Maria Knill Abel. The family moved to Australia and Nugent’s father worked as a patent agent in Brisbane, he was a Justice of the Peace and was the first life member of the Real Estate Institute in Queensland.

Nugent worked as a Commercial Traveller and spent some time in Warwick, as he is remembered on an Honor Roll housed in the Warwick Masonic Lodge in Guy Street. He enlisted on 11 December 1915, and embarked in Brisbane aboard the HMAT Itonus with the 15th Infantry Battalion reinforcementsarriving at Plymouth UK on 18 Oct 1916. They arrived at Etaples, France on 13 Dec 1916. He was reported as missing on 11th April 1917 and was later found to have been captured by the Germans during the battle at Bullecourt.

Australian troops suffered horrendous casualties in this battle while breaching the Hindenburg line. The surviving advance troops ran out of ammunition and when the troops in the rear were called to retreat, they had no choice other than to surrender to the Germans.

While interred as a prisoner of war at Limburg in Western Germany,he wrote to his parents on 3 July 1917 stating he was well and comfortable now. The food though not bountiful is sufficient. After being released at the end of the war, he arrived back to England on 1 January 1919 and returned to Australia on the Euripides on 3 March 1919 and landed at Portland, Victoria.

Upon his return to the family home in Annerley he continued with his job as a commercial traveller for many years afterwards.

Read about Southern Downs Military History here.