Bischoff, Norman Robert Charles
No.4986 – Private Norman Robert Bischoff 28th Battalion
Norman Robert Charles Bischoff was born in Mt Templeton South Australia in 1893 to Charles & Christina Bischoff. He was one of several siblings with Albert (born 1895), Walter (1897), George (1899) and Frederick (1901).
The family soon moved across to Western Australia where they took up residence in 58 Carnac Street Fremantle and then Edeline Street in Spearwood. Norman was educated at Fremantle Boys School and a school in Jarrahdale. After leaving school became a labourer.
On the 23rd February 1916 Norman enlisted into the AIF. He was accepted as fit with the medical examiner finding him to be 5 feet 10 inches in height; weight of 135 lbs; chest measurement of 33 – 36 inches; sallow complexion; light blue eyes and brown hair. His religious denomination was Wesleyan. After spending a month in a training depot, Norman was assigned to the 13th Reinforcements to the 28th Battalion.
This reinforcement group embarked from Fremantle on the “Seang Bee” and arrived in Plymouth England on the 9th September 1916. After arrival these men were sent to the 7th Training Battalion at Rollestone Camp on the Salisbury Plains. They trained here until the 3rd November when they proceeded to France.
Norman was taken on strength of the 28th Battalion on the 18th November 1916 who were then in the region of Flers on the Somme battlefield. Norman spent the next seven weeks with the 28th when he was unfortunately killed in action on the 10th January 1917.
Pte A.P. Simpson wrote that;
“I was within a yard or two of him when he was killed about January 14th in Needle Trench near Derible {Delville}Wood East of Bapaume. We were in supports at the time and some shells were coming over. One burst near us and Bischoff bobbed up to look where it had exploded. A splinter got him in the neck and cut his jugular vein. He died in about two minutes. He could not speak but was conscious. I saw him buried just outside the trench. A temporary memorial was put up…He told me the day he was killed that he was engaged to a young lady in Western Australia and was to be married as soon as he got back. He was a fine man, well liked by all his mates.”
After the war Norman’s body was recovered and he was buried at Guards Cemetery Lesboeufs, France Plot X.I.10.
His brother Walter who was serving in the 11th Battalion would die of wounds in April 1918. The Bischoff family lost their two sons to this war.
A further tragedy for the family would occur in 1919 when the youngest of the Bischoff children, Frederick died from influenza on the 1st August at Blackboy Hill hospital aged just 17. Three of their five children died young; Christine Bischoff would die in 1941 aged 71 and Charles in 1953 aged 89 but their sons would never be forgotten and memoriam notices would continue to appear after the war. One of Norman’s memoriam notices in 1919 had the following poem attached;
In our hearts your memory lingers
Tender, fond and true
There’s not a day goes by Dear Norman
But what we think of you
Inserted by his loving father, mother and brothers, Albert, George and Fred