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| Albert George
Bannister is remembered in St Giles Churchyard on what appears to be a family
headstone. Albert was Australian by nationality and was a private in the 19th
Battalion Australian Infantry, AIF. He was killed 7th April 1918, in action on
the Somme. |
| Villers-Bretonneux became famous in 1918, when the German advance
on Amiens ended in the capture of the village by their tanks and infantry on 23
April. On the following day, the 4th and 5th Australian Divisions, with units
of the 8th and 18th Divisions, recaptured the whole of the village and on 8
August 1918, the 2nd and 5th Australian Divisions advanced from its eastern
outskirts in the Battle of Amiens. |
| The VILLERS-BRETONNEUX MEMORIAL is the Australian national memorial
erected to commemorate all Australian soldiers who fought in France and Belgium
during the First World War, to their dead, and especially to those of the dead
whose graves are not known. The 10,700 Australian servicemen actually named on
the memorial died in the battlefields of the Somme, Arras, the German advance
of 1918 and the Advance to Victory. The memorial was unveiled by King George VI
in July 1938. |
| Albert was the son of Richard and Emma Bannister and had been born
in Brentwood.. |
