Bugler Frederick Ashton 11th Battalion – 25 April 1915
Frederick Ashton was a highly literate clerk aged 21, when he joined up on 18 August 1914 in the 11th Battalion. Born in Sydney, he enlisted in Geraldton W.A.
He was captured on 25 April while tending the wounded on Baby 700 – Bean wrote that he was the only Australian remaining prisoner on that first Anzac Day aside from McDonald, Lushington and Elston of the previous post. I
He was clearly well educated, with a dry sense of humour judging from a surviving letter, and his report on captivity made in London after his repatriation from Turkey. This report is full of fascinating detail on food, treatment by the Turks and work, as you will find when you read on … someone should make a movie.
At around 4.30 pm on 25 April Bugler Frederick Ashton was bandaging a wounded Kiwi on Baby 700 when the poor soldier was hit again
Fred Ashton (Photo Western Mail, 27 August 1915 – courtesy Kim Phillips, Spirits of Gallipoli)
‘He was in terrible agony and asked me to finish him off. I told him to lie still while I went and sought a stretcher-bearer. But when I looked around me I could see no sign of our former firing-line, nor could I see anyone – they seemed to have vanished completely,’ Ashton wrote in his report after the war.
