Rupert Lancelot Nolan

From The Orange Wiki

NOLAN, Rupert Lancelot

Service no: 6326 [1]

Place of birth: Carcoar, 1894

Address: Great Central Hotel, Wellington

Occupation: Barman

Next of kin: Elizabeth Sophia Nolan (mother), Great Central Hotel, Wellington

Date of enlistment: 10 May 1916

Place of enlistment: Dubbo

Age at enlistment: 22

Fate: Proceeded to Dubbo camp, a private in the 3rd Battalion, D Company 10 May 1916. Transferred to Liverpool camp 16 June 1916. Embarked HMAT A14 Euripides, Sydney, 9 September 1916. Disembarked Plymouth 26 October 1916. Marched out to Fouval, Bovington, 21 November 1916. Marched into 1st Training Battalion 8 December 1916. Embarked SS Victoria, Folkestone, 4 February 1917. Disembarked Etaples, France, 4 February 1917. Marched in to unit, Etaples, 7 February 1917. Taken on strength 3rd Battalion 12 March 1917. Wounded in action, sustaining gunshot wounds to the chest and thigh, 4 May 1917. Evacuated to 3rd Casualty Clearing Station, Rouen, 4 May 1917. Admitted to 6th General Hospital, Rouen, 4 May 1917. Embarked HS Western Australia, Rouen 19 May 1917. Admitted to Reading War Hospital 20 May 1917. Transferred to 3rd Auxiliary Hospital 30 July 1917. Granted furlough 3-17 August 1917. Marched out to No 1 Command Depot, Perlham Downs, 28 August 1917. Admitted to Tidworth Military Hospital with a shrapnel wound to the chest 11 September 1917. Discharged to Training Depot 19 October 1917. Marched in to No 2 Training Depot Weymouth 22 November 1917. Embarked HMAT Port Darwin for return to Australia 11 January 1918. Discharged from AIF due to medical unfitness 16 April 1918.

Date of death: 23 October 1976, Miranda, aged 82

Buried: Botany Cemetery

Rupert Lancelot Nolan was born in Carcoar in 1894, the ninth of eleven children born to John Joseph Nolan and Elizabeth Sophia (nee Hines).

When Rupert enlisted in May 1916 he was working as a barman at his brother’s hotel in Wellington - the Great Central Hotel. Rupert enlisted in Dubbo and entered training camp there, a private in the 3rd Battalion, 20th Reinforcement. He was transferred to Liverpool camp in June 1916 and embarked for overseas service in September.

Private Nolan undertook a further four months training in England before proceeding to the Western Front in February 1917. In April Rupert’s sisters in Orange received an interesting letter from him, which they shared with the Leader:

Pte. Lance Nolan…has had the unique experience of having been taken prisoner by the Germans, and having effected his escape. He says that during his enforced stay with the Bosch lines

he was put to digging trenches and never worked so hard in his life or with greater reluctance. With a comrade they effected their escape, and successfully reached the British lines.

Pte. Nolan has received a slight memento of German kindness by being wounded in the hip, but is back in the firing line again.

On 4 May 1917 Rupert’s battalion were engaged in the 2nd Battle of Bullecourt on the Hindenburg line. Rupert sustained gunshot wounds to his chest and thigh and was carried to the dressing station by his best mate, Bert Corrigan. Just as they arrived a shell exploded, hitting Bert in the chest. The friends parted ways; Rupert was hospitalised initially in Rouen, but later transferred to the Reading War Hospital in England. Bert appeared to be recovering from his wounds but succumbed to pneumonia two weeks later. In July 1917 Rupert wrote the following letter to Bert’s family from his hospital bed in England: