146 Private Albert George Stapleton – Cann River Killed in Action 25 April 1915

….. had several rifles smashed by projectiles

Rev. Stapleton was one of the first ministers to go to war when he signed up on 25 August 1914. He did not serve as a chaplain but rather on the front line with the 5 th  Battalion. His father had been with the Royal Artillery in England when has was born so that, as he said at the time of enlisting, the fighting instinct had been born in him. He was a Methodist Home Missionary and spent 2½ years at Cann River where he built the first Methodist Church in Croajingolong. At Cann River he was held in great esteem. He had spent five years in a rifle club and probably felt well prepared for battle but Stapleton like many others who died on 25 April simply disappeared after the first day with no remains being found for burial. He had sailed with fellow East Gippsland men Fethers, Brownell and Pyle with the four of them dying on the same day. Signaller Bassett wrote home that after our landing at Gallipoli I saw him [Stapleton] again, and found that he had escaped any serious injury, though he had had several rifles smashed by projectiles, and had been in the thick of the fighting all the time. Always he was smilingly optimistic and working hard. He kept going all night carrying in the wounded when he might have been sleeping – a characteristic action. His comrades in the company had a great admiration for him. At all times and in all places, in camp or in the field of battle, in all sorts of difficult positions, no one ever found him anything than what he was – a perfect Christian gentleman. I owe him a great deal. He is remembered on the Lone Pine memorial and also on the Cann River memorial. He was 26 years old.