Thread by @HistoricalSoton

TOM FREEMANTLE PERRY, A THREAD:

A Southampton boy who fought with the Anzacs.

This began as a single tweet, but as I researched it I quickly realised it would have to be a thread!

Tom had an interesting life. Thanks for reading.

Tom Freemantle Perry was born in Shirley, Southampton in 1897.

His parents were Thomas Perry and Rose Ellen Freemantle, who married in 1894.

They ran the Kings Arms on Church Street in Shirley.

Tom grew up in this pub, before going off to work as a farm labourer.

In 1913, aged sixteen, Tom set off on his own and moved to Australia.

Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914. In September Tom joined the Australian Imperial Force at Sydney.

He lied about his age, saying he was twenty-one. In reality he’d have been just seventeen.

Tom joined ‘A Squadron’, 2nd Light Brigade, 6th Light Horse Regt.

They embarked for war on 21 December 1914, leaving Sydney on HMAT A29 Suevic.

Incidentally, in March 1907, SS Suevic ran aground near Cornwall. The wreck was cut in two, and the stern was towed to Southampton...

A new bow was made by Harland & Wolff in Belfast and towed to Southampton. In the Trafalgar Dry Dock, H&W workers and men from the Thornycroft shipyard at Woolston put the two parts together. SS Suevic returned to service in January 1908, just ten months after running aground.

HMAT A29 Suevic took Tom’s regiment to Egypt.

They landed at Gallipoli as reinforcements on 20 May 1915. Tom was at ‘Anzac Cove’, and they remained there until in December.

In 1916 the regiment took part in the Sinai and Palestine campaign...

Tom was still a teenager when he took part in the Battle of Romani near the Suez Canal on 4 August 1916. He was shot in the arm and chest.

It is estimated that 104 Australians, 39 New Zealanders, and 79 Britons were killed in the battle.

Tom was evacuated. Luckily, he survived.

Tom recovered at the No. 1 Australian General Hospital in Cairo before returning to Australia in September 1916 with a few new scars.

He was discharged from the Australian Imperial Force in November 1916 but in April 1917 he re-enlisted, joining the 30th Infantry Battalion.

Tom left Australia for England in May 1917, on the same ship that had taken him there in 1913.

He spent time at Hurdcott Camp in Wiltshire, a convalescent camp where in early 1917 soldiers created a chalk outline of Australia. This was restored recently by @ww1australiamap.

Tom returned to Australia in January 1918 and was discharged for good in April 1918.

He was awarded the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal, and the Victory Medal.

Not long after being discharged he decided to return home to Southampton, where he joined the Merchant Navy.

By 1925 Tom had returned to Church Street in Shirley.

In that same year he underwent major surgery to remove the bullet which had been lodged in his lung since 1916.

In 1939 Tom was living with his wife and children at 21 Warren Avenue, Southampton.

His home was less than a mile from where he’d grown up at the Kings Arms on Church Street in Shirley.

It’s nice to think that after all he’d been through, he eventually got to return home.

Tom Freemantle Perry died in London in 1993 aged ninety-five.

In his long and interesting life he travelled the world, saw a lot, and went through an awful lot too. He did his bit for both Britain and Australia in the war and after all that he came home.

Rest in peace, Tom.