Policeman MIA during charge

SECOND-GENERATION law enforcement officer Vic Lisson was born at Geeveston in 1890 and was working as a mounted policeman when he enlisted for World War I in 1915.

Standing six feet tall (1.82m) he was taller than the average Anzac. His father was also a police officer, serving as a senior constable at Dover during the war.

Vic joined the 26th Battalion in Egypt in January 1916 and proceeded to France two months later. He attended a school of instruction in France in May 1916 and was wounded in action that July.

Later in the same month, he was listed as missing in action following a charge at Pozieres.

Sergeant G. Eppingstall told a later inquiry that he had seen Vic, his best mate, wounded by machinegun fire on July 28.

“This was in the charge. We were scrapping pretty hard,” Sgt Eppingstall told the Red Cross Missing and Wounded and Missing Bureau.

Private W. Milne reported that he had given aid to Vic on the night in question. “I attended Pte Lisson who had a bad wound over the heart,” he said. “He was too bad to move into our own lines so I put him in a shell hole and he told me to go on with the boys, he would be all right. Dear sir, I feel sure he died from the wound which was very bad.”

Vic has no known grave and is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneaux Memorial in France.

George Eppingstall would later write to Vic’s mother in Dover: “I felt Vic’s death as if it had been my own brother.”

Private Victor Tasman Lisson is remembered at tree 96 on the Soldiers’ Memorial Avenue and on honour boards at the Hobart Town Hall and Holy Trinity Church.