Moonah soldier Albert Pearce is a modest man with a big name among Tasmania’s 100 days of heroes

HERCULEAN by name, 28-year-old father of two Albert Pearce was a stocky 162cm and 70kg when he enlisted for service in World War I in March 1916.

World War I soldier Albert Herculean Augustus Pearce is commemorated at tree #503 on the Soldiers' Memorial Avenue in Hobart.

HERCULEAN by name, 28-year-old father of two Albert Pearce was a stocky 162cm and 70kg when he enlisted for service in World War I in March 1916.

His enlistment papers record his name as Albert Herculean Augustus Pearce, of Charles St, Moonah, but his birth registration in Hobart and other army documents spell his third name as Augustin.

He had a tattoo of a “lady and gent” on his arm and during training at the Claremont Army Camp found himself fined the equivalent of 25c for having an untidy tent.

Later in 1916 he lost seven days’ pay for being absent without leave for three nights from the Larkhill Camp on England’s Salisbury Plain.

DAY 8: LIEUTENANT PERCY BINNS

World War I soldier Albert Pearce, of Moonah, with wife Ivy and children Albert and Ivy. Picture: ELAINE GOWLING

But these facts disguise the truth of a loyal son and faithful husband who had met the love of his life in New Zealand, married her in 1910, and brought her back to Tasmania to raise their family.

Under the man and woman tattooed on his right arm were his initials and those of his wife.

The son of George and Annie of 160 Bathurst St, Hobart, he had grown up as part of a large family with siblings Polly, Ann, Georgina, George, Alice, Ruby, Lydia and William (who also joined up).

While at war, Albert wrote poems to his wife and sent them home on postcards, including the following:

Though you are there and I am here

And we are far apart

Affection reaches everywhere

the fond and faithful heart

And so I send this card to you,

across the sundering sea,

that you may know that I am true

As you are true to me.

Albert’s three days AWOL came just before he sailed for Belgium via France late in 1916.

He disembarked at Le Havre on November 24, 1916 and from there went by train to Bailleul in French Flanders, a town that holds the graves of many Tasmanians, and then by bus — a great novelty — to Merris, near Armentieres.

On December 2, the Australians marched to Armentieres and their war began in earnest.

Albert’s experience at the front was short. He was killed in action on January 7, 1917, and buried in Cite Bonjean Military Cemetery, Armentieres.

A tree in memory of Private Albert Herculean Augustus Pearce was planted on the Soldiers’ Memorial Avenue in 1919 but its details are not known.

Tree number 503 has since been allocated to him, and he is also named on the Hobart Town Hall honour board.