Name
Patrick Francis Ryan DCM
9 March 1883
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
18/09/1918
35
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lieutenant
212 & 53544
Australian Infantry, A.I.F.
2nd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
D C M
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
ROISEL COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION
II. H. 5.
France
Headstone Inscription
AT HIS COUNTRY'S ALTAR HIS LIFE, HIS LOVE HE LAID EVER REMEMBERED
UK & Other Memorials
Digswell House Australian Hospital Memorial, St John's Church, Digswell
Pre War
Patrick Francis Ryan was born on 9 March 1883 in Smythesdale, Victoria, the son of Patrick and Ellen Ryan. He and his wife Emma lived at Clutha, Stuart Street, Kogarah, New South Wales, where he worked as a Station Hand and later as a Clerk.
Wartime Service
He first enlisted on 18 September 1914 and served as a Corporal (reg. no. 212) with B Squadron, 6th Light Horse Regiment and embarked from Sydney aboard HMAT Suevic on 21 December 1914. On 5 March 1915 he was promoted to Sergeant and awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) on 14 January 1916 "for conspicuous gallantry during September 1915 in the trenches at Lone Pine (Dardanelles), when he was on one occasion for forty-eight hours continuously in charge of his Regiment bomb-throwers under heavy fire". He was also Mentioned in Dispatches. He was wounded in action on 26 June 1917 at Bullecourt and sent to England to recover, spending a few months at Digswell House. On 18 October 1917 he was commissioned as a Captain with the 2nd Battalion and returned to Australia where his commission was terminated on medical grounds because of a duodenal ulcer. He re-enlisted on 19 February 1918 as a Private (reg. no. 535440 with the 3rd (NSW) Reinforcements and was appointed acting Company Sergeant Major when he embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board RMS Osterley on 8 May 1918 for the journey to Europe. He was re-appointed to the rank of Lieutenant with the 54th Battalion, later the 2nd Battalion, on his return to France in July 1918 and was attached to the 1st Light Trench Mortar Battery for a month before he returned to the 2nd Battalion in early September but was killed in action on 18 September 1918, age 35.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
aif.adfa.edu.au, Virtual War Memorial Australia
