37th Battalion Australian Infantry
Albert George Bond was a natural born Australian, from West Bendigo, Victoria. He left his job as a farm hand to enlist in the Army on 28 September 1916, when aged 18.
He arrived in England in December 1916 and on 1 September 1917 was posted to 37th Battalion in France, as part of a re-enforcement draft. On 12 October 1917, the opening day of the First Battle of Passchendaele, he sustained a severe gun shot wound to his right thigh. After passing through various medical units he ended up at Stratford-upon-Avon War Hospital on 18 October. He left there almost a month later and after time spent in convalescence and training, returned to France on 12 May 1918, initially to Etaples, before rejoining the 37th Battalion at the Front on 25 May.
He was to spend a further period of time in hospital, due to sickness, in late August and early September before rejoining his unit on 28 September. The next day he took part in 3rd Australian Division’s attack on the St Quentin Canal and in the fighting at Mont St Quentin he again suffered a gun shot wound, this time to his left thigh. This resulted in evacuation to England where he was sent to the Cheltenham VAD Hospital and thereafter to the Red Cross Hospital at Gloucester. His wound had virtually healed when he contracted influenza and pneumonia, from which he died in the early hours of 29 October 1918, aged just 20.
Albert was laid to rest in Gloucester Old Cemetery, with full military honours.
A standard CWGC headstone marks his grave, his parents choosing the inscription Our loved one, peacefully sleeping.