1672 Private John Ritchie Fanning – Bairnsdale Killed in action 30 April 1915

….. the last the family heard of him

John Fanning Snr and his three adult sons moved from Tasmania to Bairnsdale about 1912, where John Jnr, a seaman by trade, was working for the Greene family and living in East Bairnsdale. All males in the Fanning family served for “King and country”. John Snr was on the veldt in South Africa during the Boer war with the Johannesburg Mounted Rifles and the eldest son Roy was a wireless operator. John Ritchie was born on Flinders Island and was 22 years old when he enlisted on 28 January 1915. According to his enlistment papers he had spent three years with the Tasmanian Infantry and six months with the Tropical Expeditionary Forces in New Guinea before joining the 13 th   Battalion. On 30 March he wrote a letter home saying that he was in Egypt and was proceeding to the front. That was the last the family heard of him. The family received a telegram in August stating that he was missing and a court of enquiry held the following year on 28 April 1916 determined that he was killed in action on 30 April 1915 at Gallipoli. He is remembered at Lone Pine and on the Bairnsdale Shire Honour roll. In turn his two brothers, Roy and Dudley, (who waited until he was “at sea” to send a letter to his family telling them he had joined up), returned home safely.