19/04/1916- Completed Medical Examination Blackboy Hill WA
24/04/1916-To 62 Depot as Private
1/05/1916-To 16th Battalion 21st Reinforcements Blackboy Hill WA
12/12/1916-To 4th Training Battalion Codford England ex Australia
8/02/1917-Proceeded Overseas 4th Aust Division Base Depot Etaples France ex Folkestone ex Codford
13/02/1917-Joined 16th Battalion in the field France
11/04/1917-Reported MISSING IN ACTION France
11/04/1917-Reported KILLED IN ACTION Bullecourt France

Service Medals Awarded

British War Medal – No. 48687

Victory Medal – No. 49286

Memorial Plaque/Scroll – No. 330335

Memorial Inscriptions

Villers-Brettoneux Memorial France

Australian War Memorial Canberra – Panel No. 78

Capel War Memorial, Western Australia.

Staements re. Soldiers Death

( 1 ) – No. 6214 – Pte. STEWART, G – 16th Battalion – ” Pte. BENTLEY E L was seen by me sitting dead  in a trench shot through the heart at Reincourt on  the 11th April 1917. He came over with the 21st Reinforcements  and was in a Machine Gun Section. I knew the man well and took the ammunition off him. He was still there when I left at 11.00am ( 6 hours afterwards ). He was quite dead, but I do not know if he was buried “.

( 2 )- No. 6582 – Pte. SLOSS, T W – 16th Battalion –  ” On the morning of the 11th April at Bullecourt, at about 9.00am I found No. 6478 Pte. BENTLEY, E L of the 16th Battalion lying dead in the trench we occupied.  Acting on instructions received from Lieut. WATSON ” B ” Company 16th Battalion I buried Pte. BENTLEY in a shell hole. I am sure it was Pte. BENTLEY, because I was personally acquainted with him “.

MEMORIAL

There is a Memorial to this soldier in the Capel Cemetery WA at Section AB4 – Grave No. 54.

( Sincere thanks to Jen THOMSON for advising details of the Memorial in her work ” Capel Connections “, February 2018.