Contributed by Ron Inglis, October 2021:
Sidney Dunn 25 was a ‘late entry’ in the submission of names to the various committees in Auburn preparing commemorative lists. Dunn S was one of ten names on an extra tablet added to the Auburn War Memorial after unveiling day, 30 April 1922.
The name Sidney Dunn was not included on the Honour Roll in the Auburn Presbyterian Church. Nor is his name found among the ten names included in a special stained-glass window in the church that commemorates the church members who died in the First World War. The only connection between Sidney Dunn and Auburn that has come to light is that there is a special stained-glass window in the church bearing name L/Cpl Sidney (misspelt Sydney) Dunn and the particulars of his death in the war.
Sidney Dunn, a Carter, enlisted in February 1915 and served on Gallipoli for four months up to the evacuation. He returned to Egypt, was taken on strength of the 17th Battalion and moved off with the division to the Western Front via the French Mediterranean port of Marseilles. Early in the battle of Pozières, Dunn was wounded and evacuated to a hospital in Cardiff, Wales. He spent over a year in the UK being treated for a gunshot wound to the left shoulder and hand plus 72 days being treated for VD. Dunn returned to his battalion and survived for another eight months before being wounded again. After a month of convalescence in a military hospital in France, Dunn returned to his unit on 13 July 1918 and was killed in action five days later.
Sidney Dunn was one of only five Auburn Memorial men who served in the first AIF for more than three years prior to their deaths. Even though Dunn had a lot of time out in hospitals and recuperation camps, and even though he had a bad record with numerous ‘crimes’ of drunkenness, causing a disturbance and AWL, he still managed, altogether, a very impressive total of one year and three months on front-line service. Very few of the Auburn Memorial men exceeded Dunn’s time ‘in the trenches’, or ‘at the sharp end’ as the diggers would say.
Lance Corporal Dunn was originally buried in the Embankment British Cemetery but after the war he was re-interred in the Adelaide Cemetery on the western edge of Villers-Bretonneux along with fellow Auburn Memorial men Private Stephen Barber and Corporal William Stanley Hewitt. It was from the Adelaide Cemetery that, in 1993, the remains of an unknown Australian soldier were exhumed and returned to Australia for burial in the Australian War Memorial Canberra in Canberra.
On enlistment, Dunn had nominated his sister, Crissie, of Strathfield as his next-of-kin and he also made her the beneficiary of his will. So Crissie received Dunn’s personal effects and his deferred pay but as Dunn’s parents were deceased, his medals were sent to his brother, William, of Concord.
Sidney Dunn is honoured on the following memorials in Australia:
- Auburn War Memorial
- Municipality of Auburn 1914-1919 Honour Roll
- Lance Corporal Sidney (Sydney) Dunn Memorial Window, Auburn
- Roll of Honour Australian War Memorial Canberra
His decorations:
- British War Medal 1914-20
- Victory Medal
- 1914-1915 Star
