Percival May
Name: Percival Henry May
Rank: Private
Service Number: 2398
Units Served: 27th Infantry Battalion
Personal Details: Percival Henry May was born in Langhorne Creek in 1895 or 1896. His father was Henry May, and together they had moved to Meningie by the time that Percival enlisted. His mother, Fanny, died early and his father then married Janet Mack, making Percival a step brother to Hans Mack. He was a labourer and was 5' 7 1/4" tall with a fresh complexion, grey eyes and dark brown hair. He weighed 179 lbs at the time of his enlistment.
Military Service: Percival enlisted on the 25th June, 1915. His age was recorded as 19 years and 9 months on one form and 18 years and 9 months on another. He was assigned to the 5th Reinforcement of the 27th Battalion. He embarked Adelaide on the 13th October 1915 aboard the "Themistocles". He caught the "mumps" in December and was hospitalised in Cairo, before being released on the 5th January, 1916 and taken on strength by the 27th Battalion a week later.
On the 16th March he sailed from Alexandria to Marseilles arriving on the 21st. He participated in the 27th Battalion's first engagement on the Western Front at Pozieres in early August, 1916. He received a shrapnel wound to the head on the 4th of August in an attack on the O.G. 1 Trench, and died from this wound 6 days later at the 5th Australian Field Ambulance. Unfortunately his grave was lost in subsequent fighting in the area and his remembered on the wall of the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Brettoneux.
