Description
Title: Memoirs of a Vagabond
Author: Birnberg, Lionel
Condition: Very Good
Edition: 1st Edition
Publication Date: 1944
ISBN: N/A
Cover: Soft Cover without Dust Jacket – 86 pages
Comments: The autobiography of Lionel Birnberg who served in the AIF during World War One.
Lionel Birnberg was a Romanian Merchant Seaman when he enlisted into the 22nd Reinforcements of the 10th Battalion on 11 September 1916. He embarked for France on the HMAT Afric on 7 November 1916, aged 37 years, and joined the Battalion in the Field.
Listed on 13 October Field Return as wounded on 8 October (the return covers noon 8 to noon 9 so he is therefore deemed to be in the raiding party). Treated for Shrapnel Wound (‘SW’)) at 3rd Field Ambulance then to 17th Casualty Clearing Station on 10 October. Evacuated to England he did not rejoin the Battalion until November 1917.
He was wounded again at Meteren in April 1918 and after discharge returned to his native Romania.
He subsequently returned to South Australia and wrote a number of boooks under the nome de plume of ‘Mala’, including ‘Memoirs of a Vagabond’, and ‘Travel Experiences of an ex-AIF Globetrotter’. He re-enlisted for service on the outbreak of WW2 in 1939, listing Sophie Coic as his next of kin. By then 60 years old he was discharged by the end of 1939.
He died in Sydney and was laid to rest on 23 June 1953, by which time he was 74 years old.
