Clyde Bennett, the second son of Charles and Elizabeth Bennett of Bairnsdale was born in Bairnsdale in 1895 and went to school at 754. He worked as a blacksmith and as a young man he was a valued member of the Bairnsdale Fire Brigade before he enlisted on 22 July 1915. With the same training as many others, he first went to Egypt before the 59 th  Battalion sailed to Marseilles and travelled by train to their camp behind the lines. Initially his family were informed that he was missing, then convalescing, and then the following year, that he had been killed in that first attack. A fellow local, William Twitchett from Nicholson, told the officials in 1921 I was with him at the time of the battle of Fluer-Baix and also went over the top with him. Last I seen of him was about 150 yds out in No Man’s Land, directly in from of Penny’s Sap, just a little to the left, of the Main Road, leading up from Fluer-Baix and about 50 yds, on the enemy’s side of the River Syes. Trusting that this will be of some importance as regards the tracing of deceased soldier grave. His body was never located.

3240 Private Clyde James Bennett – Bairnsdale Killed in Action 19 July 1916

….. his body was never recovered