FREMANTLE'S FAMILY OF SORROW & PRIDE

22 year old Fred Robertson enlisted in Fremantle on 24 June 1915 . His brother Lewis Robertson who was 25 years old enlisted on 9 August 1915. Their 26 year old cousin Henry Stanton followed shortly after, enlisting on 3 January 1916 .

The three men served in the West Australian 11th Battalion which headed straight to France and the Western Front. This Fremantle family was to lose all three boys to the war.

Lewis Robertson was killed in action in August 1916 and has no known grave. His name is on the Australian National Memorial in Villers-Bretonneux in France with the names of 10,885 other Australian soldiers with no known graves.

Fred Robertson was wounded in France and evacuated to London. He died of a gunshot wound on 26 September 1917 and is buried in the Brookwood Military Cemetery in Surrey.

Henry Stanton, the last to leave Fremantle, was killed in action in France on 22 August 1918 less than three months before the Armistice, and is buried in the French National Cemetery, at Etinehem.

The City of Fremantle received a $41,000 grant from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to publish a book about the Great War soldiers from Fremantle. There will also be a book for local schools and an interactive Centenary of ANZAC website.