Veteran Story: Gus (Augustus Hodgkinson) Davies was born in Port Douglas approx. 1880. After his mother died when he was just 3 weeks old, he was adopted by her employers Thomas Clinton and Mary Jane Davies. He volunteered to serve with the first AIF in May 1917, shortly after restrictions had been eased for Indigenous enlistment. Davies left behind his wife Esther and two sons Augustus and Henry, as he embarked from Sydney on board the troopship Horarata in June, bound for England with the 8th Reinforcements for the 41st Infantry Battalion. During the voyage he was isolated in the ships' hospital suffering from mumps. When he arrived in England he joined the troops at the 11th Australian Training Battalion at Larkhill Camp, later moving to No. 13 Camp Fovant, then on to No.2 Camp Depot, Weymouth. Davies experience in the winter of 1917 determined his military fate. The medical authorities decided that as he was suffering from chronic rheumatism and had flat feet he would not be fit to serve in the front lines in France and Belgium. Davies was returned home to his family on the Balmoral Castle in February 1918 and was one of the few Indigenous servicemen to be granted a soldier settlement allotment at Wyampa in Bald Hills. Gus Davies died in 1955 age 72; he suffered a heart attack while walking along the banks of the Pine River, and drowned.
