CAMERON, Ronald Bowker

CAMERON, Ronald Bowker – A Southern Downs Veteran

CONFLICT : WWI
SERVICE NO : 6534
RANK : Private
UNIT : 25th Battalion
ENLISTMENT DATE : 10/11/1916
AGE : 23
PLACE OF ENLISTMENT : Warwick, Queensland
PLACE OF BIRTH : Balranald, New South Wales
RELIGION : Presbyterian
OCCUPATION : Farmer
DATE OF DEATH : 10/06/1918
PLACE OF BURIAL : No Known Grave

MEMORIALS : Yelarbon War Memorial, Yelarbon Roll of Honour, Goondiwindi War Memorial, Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Villers-Bretonneux Memorial

View Veteran’s Service File : CAMERON, Ronald Bowker

NOTES : CAMERON, Ronald Bowker – By Duncan McLean

Ronald (Ron) Bowker Cameron was killed in action at Morlancourt, France, on 10 June, 1918. His body was never found. His mother, Elizabeth, spent the next four or five years corresponding with the War Department, trying to find out details regarding her son’s death. She was told that his watch had been passed on to a friend (which may have been Cecil Donovan from Inglewood – but unfortunately, Cecil was killed three months after Ron). No personal effects from Ron Cameron had been returned to Elizabeth at the time of her death in 1926.

Ron’s brother Herbert Douglas Cameron 1964 and his cousin Maurice Murray Jobson 2647 also served in the First World War and both returned safely to Australia.

In 1954, a letter was received by the R.S.L. in Australia, from a farmer named Asher Rosemarin in Israel. He stated:

I have in my possession a watch with this cover inscription – Presented to Ronald B. Cameron By his mother and brothers S. and W. Enlisted A.I.F. 16-10-16. As this watch, still in working order, is of no particular value to me, and it may be of great value to the aforementioned man or his relatives, I beg you to try and trace them up and send me their address so as to enable me to send them the watch.

His two brothers who were mentioned in the engraving were Stuart and Walter.

Eventually, the watch was indeed returned to Ron’s brother Stuart, in Australia, in 1955. Stuart subsequently donated it to the Australian War Memorial on 19 February, 1964. It remains in the AWM collection.

Copyright 2026 Deborah C Wheeler and Duncan McLean, Southern Downs Military History

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