Service: Australian Army Corps Headquarters 1
Service number: VX14445
Locality on Enlistment: Alvie
Duration of Service: 4 Apr 1937 – 28 Apr 1941
Prisoner of War: No
Honours: None for display
Date and Place of Birth: 28 May 1916 Colac
Parents: Alfred Leslie BRIDGEMAN and Elsie BOYD
Spouse: Manda ROBERTS
School/s:
Occupation: Music Teacher
Date and Place of Death: 28 Apr 1941 Greece
Place of Burial: Phaleron War Cemetery, Athens, Greece
NOTES: In May 1940 Ian Bridgeman was newly married and serving with the Militia when he applied to serve overseas with the AIF. He was in the Tolos-Navplion area where 1500 men had been left behind on the night of 26–27 April 1941. They now provided a rear-guard covering the beach at Tolos, where the others in four columns waited for the destroyers which never appeared. At 3 a.m. they dispersed, efforts were made to collect boats or caiques, and officers were told by Colonel J. H. Courage that they and their men could take to the hills or escape by boat. The small force from the Australian battalion attempted to hold the beach but by the late afternoon, 28 April, it had been overwhelmed. It was here that Bridgeman lost his life on what was then known as “T Beach”. Victoria University of Wellington Library