Profile

SLOAN, Robert
(Service number 7/121)

Aliases
First Rank Sergeant Major Last Rank Warrant Officer Class 1 Staff Sergeant Major

Birth

Date Unknown Place of Birth

Enlistment Information

Date Age
Address at Enlistment Rolleston Street, Timaru
Occupation
Previous Military Experience South African War 1899-1902
Marital Status Married
Next of Kin Mrs Ellenor Sloan(wife), 10 Clifton Gardens, Stanford Hill, London England
Religion
Medical Information

Military Service

Served with NZ Armed Forces Served in
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation Main Body
Unit, Squadron, or Ship Canterbury Mounted Rifles
Date 16 October 1914
Transport HMNZT 4, 11 Tahiti /Athenic
Embarked From Lyttleton, Canterbury Destination Suez, Egypt
Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With Canterbury Mounted Rifles

Military Awards

Campaigns
Service Medals
Military Awards

Award Circumstances and Date

No information

Prisoner of War Information

Date of Capture
Where Captured and by Whom
Actions Prior to Capture
PoW Serial Number
PoW Camps
Days Interned
Liberation Date

Discharge

Date Reason

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

Post-war Occupations

Death

Date 21 August 1915 Age
Place of Death Gallipoli, Turkey
Cause Killed in action
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery Hill 60 (NZ) Memorial, Hill 60 Cemetery, Turkey
Memorial Reference
New Zealand Memorials On Memorial wall, Timaru

Biographical Notes

Robert Sloan was the son of Robert and Mary Sloan who had married in the district of Dungannon, Northern Ireland, on 31st December 1870. Robert (junior) was born on 20 October 1882, one of ten children in his family.

As a Sergeant Major Sloan served in the 16th (Queen's) Lancers', during the Boer War. Later Sloan moved to Timaru, New Zealand. There he served as the Staff Sergeant-Major of the 8th (South Canterbury) Mounted Regiment (a volunteer unit) for between three and four years, and (says the Christchurch "Press") played no small part in bringing it up to the high degree of efficiency which enabled the regiment to win the Stead Shield at the annual camp.

On the outbreak of war, Staff Sergeant Major Robert Sloan volunteered and embarked for Egypt with the Canterbury Mounted Rifles contingent with the “Main Body” (the first contingent of New Zealand soldiers) on 16 October 1914.

Along with the other members of the NZEF Sloan served in the eight month campaign in Gallipoli with other Commonwealth and French forces.The Allies landed on the peninsula on 25-26 April 1915; the 29th Division at Cape Helles in the south and the Australian and New Zealand Corps north of Gaba Tepe on the west coast, an area soon known as Anzac.

On 6 August, further landings were made at Suvla, just north of Anzac, and the climax of the campaign came in early August when simultaneous assaults were launched on all three fronts. At the beginning of August 1915, Hill 60, which commanded the shore ward communications between the forces at Anzac and Suvla, was in Turkish hands.

Staff Sergeant Major Robert Sloan was killed in action at Gallipoli on 21 August 1915, aged 32. Staff Sergeant Major Robert Sloan has no known grave and is commemorated on Hill 60 New Zealand Memorial in Turkey, the Dungannon War Memorial, and on the War Memorial Wall in Timaru.

After his death, Sloan’s wife, Eleanor and the couple’s two children, returned to England.

A biography of Robert Sloan was published on the Dungannon War Dead Database in January 2022 at https://www.dungannonwardead.com/person.asp?casualtyid=732 - which this biography is largely based on.

Sources

Marlborough Express, 18 September 1915 (p8); SCRoll web submission by C Hunter, 31 December 2021; "7/121 Staff Sergeant Major Robert Sloan", Dungannon War Dead Database at https://www.dungannonwardead.com/persondepth.asp?cas_id=732 [accessed 12 January 2022]

External Links

Related Documents

No documents available.

Researched and Written by

Liz Shea (SC branch NZSG)

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Logo. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.

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