1914-15 Star : Private R E Edge, 18 Battalion, AIF

Accession Number REL/04059.001
Collection type Heraldry
Object type Medal
Physical description Bronze
Maker Unknown
Place made United Kingdom
Date made c 1920
Conflict First World War, 1914-1918
Description

1914-15 Star. Impressed on reverse with recipients details. In original packaging and envelope.

History / Summary

Randolph Edward Edge enlisted in the AIF just shy of 39 years old, on 27 January 1915. Born in London, Edge was employed as a clerk in Sydney. At Liverpool, he was assigned the regimental number 1384 and allotted to D company, 18 Battalion. Edge embarked for active service on board HMAT Ceramic on 25 June 1915. After just under a month of further training in Egypt, Private Edge proceeded to Gallipoli on 22 August 1915. The inexperienced battalion had not been ashore a day when it was committed to the last operation of the August Offensive ' the attack on Hill 60' which lasted until 29 August and cost it 50 per cent casualties. Sometime in the next five days – between 22 and 27 August, Private Edge was killed. His next of kin were provided with two conflicting versions of his death; during the charge at Hill 60 about the 24th August whereafter Edge’s body was burnt. [An artillery shell had set undergrowth on fire, burning many of the wounded to death.] Private Edge’s sister, his next of kin, also received a conflicting statement from Base Records at Victoria Barracks saying Private Edge was killed in the trenches by an explosion on 27 August. There can be no certainty as to the exact circumstances of his death. In any case his body was never recovered, and he is memorialised at the Lone Pine memorial to the missing. Over two years after his death, Private Edge’s sister Mary finally received the diary notebook of her late brother.