| Additional Information: | Son of Alfred and Margaret Annie Theaker, of 8, Mount St., Barnsley, Yorks, England. |
Embarkation information
Service Number: 3804
Rank/Calling: Private
Unit: 7 Field Ambulance (May-June 1915)
Ship Name: HMAT Ascanius
Ship Number: A11
Date of Embarkation: 25/05/1915
Place of Embarkation: Brisbane
Nominal roll information
3804 Cpl Theaker Norman 13th Fld. Amb.17.3.15 D.O.D. 26.10.18
Sergt. Norman Theaker, 13th Australian Field Ambulance, died of bronchial pneumonia on the 26th October, at the 41st Stationary Hospital, France. He was a son of Mr. and Mrs. Theaker , 8, Mount Street, Barnsley. - Barnsley Chronicle. Saturday 9 November 1918 ( Courtesy Douglas Theaker)
| Cemetery: | VILLERS-BRETONNEUX MILITARY CEMETERY, Somme, France |
| Grave Reference/ Panel Number: |
XV. BB. 4. |
| Location: | Villers-Bretonneux is a village 16 kilometres
east of Amiens on the straight main road to St Quentin. The Cemetery is
about 2 kilometres north of the village on the east side of the road to
Fouilloy. |
| Historical Information: | Villers-Bretonneux became famous in 1918, when the German advance on Amiens ended (on the 23rd April) in the capture of Villers-Bretonneux by German tanks and infantry. On the following day the 4th Australian and 5th Australian Divisions, with units of the 8th and 18th Divisions, recaptured the whole of the village; and from its Eastern outskirts the 2nd Australian and 5th Australian Divisions advanced on the 8th August, 1918, in the Battle of Amiens. The village was later "adopted" by the City of Melbourne, and the village school was rebuilt in 1923 at the cost of the children attending Government schools in Victoria. The cemetery was made after the Armistice by the concentration of graves from other burial grounds and from the battlefields. Plots I to XX were made by 1920, and contain a majority of Australian graves; Plots IIIA, VIA, XIIIA and XVIA and Rows in other Plots lettered AA were made by 1925, and contain a much larger proportion of unidentified graves brought from a wider area; and later still the graves from Dury Hospital Military Cemetery were brought in. Almost all the graves in Plots I to XX are of the period March-August, 1918. There are now over 2,000, 1914-18 and a small number of 1939-45 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, just over 600 from the 1914-18 War are unidentified and special memorials are erected to four soldiers from the United Kingdom and one from Australia, known or believed to be buried among them. Other special memorials record the names of seven soldiers from the United Kingdom, six from Australia and two from Canada, buried in other cemeteries, whose graves could not be found. One American grave and one French have been removed to other burial grounds. At the back of the cemetery is the site of the Australian National Memorial. The following were among the burial grounds from which British graves were taken to Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery:- CARD COPSE CEMETERY, MARCELCAVE, on the road to Fouilloy, where 35 Australian soldiers were buried by the 2nd Australian Division in July and August, 1918. DURY HOSPITAL MILITARY, CEMETERY, under the wall of the Asylum near the West side of the Amiens-Dury road. From August, 1918, to January, 1919, this building was used intermittently by British medical units, and a cemetery was made next to an existing French Military Cemetery. The British cemetery contained the graves of 195 Canadian and 185 United Kingdom soldiers and airmen; 63 Australian soldiers; one man of the Cape Auxiliary Horse Transport Corps; and one French and one American soldier. HIGH CEMETERY, SAILLY-LE-SEC, on the road to Ville-sur-Ancre, where 18 United Kingdom and eleven Australian soldiers were buried in June-August, 1918. KANGAROO CEMETERY, SAILLY-LE-SEC (on the Ville-sur-Ancre road, but nearer Sailly), where 13 Australian soldiers were buried by the 41st Battalion in March-April, 1918, and 14 of the 58th (London) Division by their comrades in August, 1918. LAMOTTE-EN-SANTERRE COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION. The village was captured by Australian troops on the 8th August, 1918, and the Extension contained the graves of 56 Australian and twelve United Kingdom soldiers who fell in August and September. LA NEUVILLE-LES-BRAY COMMUNAL CEMETERY, containing the grave of one Australian soldier who fell in August, 1918. LE HAMELET BRITISH CEMETERY (behind the Church), containing the graves of 25 Australian soldiers who fell in April-July, 1918; and the COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION, in which 27 Australian soldiers and one from the United Kingdom were buried in July and August, 1916. MIDWAY CEMETERY, MARCELCAVE, 1,371 metres North-West of Marcelcave Church, made by the Canadian Corps and containing the graves of 53 Canadian and three United Kingdom soldiers who fell in August, 1918. VAUX-SUR-SOMME COMMUNAL CEMETERY, containing three Australian graves of March-April, 1918, and two United Kingdom of 1916 and 1917; and the EXTENSION, made in May-August, 1918, and containing the graves of 130 Australian soldiers and 104 soldiers (mainly 58th Division and Artillery) and one airman from the United Kingdom. WARFUSEE-ABANCOURT COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION, in which five Australian soldiers were buried by the 12th Australian Field Ambulance in August, 1918. |