Jacob Borwick Percy HUNTER

Jacob ‘Percy’ Hunter was born on 11 April 1888 in Essendon, at McPhail Street, Victoria. His parents were John Birsey and Annie Maria (née Hawthorne) Hunter. He attended Scotch in 1897.

Percy was a farmer when he enlisted on 2 October 1914 at Rosehill, New South Wales. He served in the 2nd Battalion with the rank of Private. His Regimental Number was 1139.

Percy died on 23 July 1916 at Pozieres. He was 28 years of age.

Service record

Percy or ‘Perce’ Hunter joined the first reinforcements to the 2nd Battalion, a New South Wales unit. He embarked by ship for Egypt in December 1914. He was at Gallipoli [on or soon after the landing], and was wounded by shellfire [one page in his service record says in the right forearm, two others that it was ‘leg and arm’] on 24 May. He was evacuated to a hospital ship six days later and then to Egypt. He was well enough to accompany the battalion to Marseille, France, in March.

For 25 days in April he received leave, first in France, then in England. The latter was in relation to a complex inheritance case. His will appears in his service record, as does a letter from a concerned and aged Welsh aunt, who said that his illness and wounding were not good for her health.

He was initially posted missing at Pozieres. His Red Cross Missing and Wounded file contains another September 1916 letter from the aunt, asking for any news from him, as his last letter had been sent on 16 July. The file also includes testimony from a fellow member of his company that he saw ‘Pte Hunter lying in the open evidently killed by a shell.’ Another said that he too saw Percy lying dead, in the battalion’s 2nd line at Pozieres. Neither man knew of his burial, but one claimed that the unit’s dead ‘were properly buried.’ A Lance Corporal said that Hunter ‘was killed in a charge at Pozieres and I saw his body.’ He asserted about Percy’s burial: ‘Some men went over the parapet at night when the firing slacked down and buried him where he fell.’ One of his close friends, Private Hillman, had not seen ‘Perce’ killed but heard from others that he had been ‘practically blown to pieces’ by a shell and covered with debris.

According to his service record he was buried near Pozieres. His body was not found after the war. No one filled out a postwar Roll of Honour Circular for Percy. Neither was a photograph submitted to The Scotch Collegian. The Scotch archivist, Paul Mishura, identified him as a Scotch war death in 2014, and also unearthed the fact that Percy had been cruelly abandoned by his father and brought up by a Miss Sutherland. The school has honoured him by including his name among those added to the Memorial Hall Honour Roll in 2015.

Percy Hunter has no known grave but is commemorated at the Australian National Memorial, Villers-Bretonneux, France.

Sources:

1. Australian War Memorial – Roll of Honour and Red Cross Wounded and Missing file
2. Mishura, Paul, ‘The interesting deeds of uncelebrated Scotchies’, Great Scot, September 2014, https://www.scotch.vic.edu.au/greatscot/2014sepGS/84a.htm
3. Mishura Scotch Database
4. National Archives of Australia – B2455, HUNTER PB 1139
5. The AIF Project - https://www.aif.adfa.edu.au/showPerson?pid=147526