Battle-scarred veteran

On 31 August 1918 Pte Alfred Arthur Tower received a gunshot wound to the left side of his face and his left fingers, and was evacuated to England. He returned to Australian in January 1919, and is shown in the above photo in his front garden in Ascot Vale with a wound stripe on his left sleeve and a scar on the left side of his face.  Alfred later worked for the City of Essendon  at the Municipal Quarry in Maribyrnong.  Photo courtesy of David Towler.  Further photos of Arthur and his family can be found on the Empire Called website.

Missing at Moquet Farm, 1916 - Private William Young

Mouquet Farm, December 1916.  The Germans were entrenched in a catacomb-like

system of tunnels under the farm.   (AWM E00564)

Young William Young was only eighteen and a half years old when he enlisted  along with the record  36 575 men who volunteered for the army in July 1915.  Rod Martin explores the brief life and unknown death of this young soldier.

The horsewhisperer

Private George Paton Wilson, circa 1917

George Wilson, a woolclasser from Essendon, was only 18½ when he enlisted on 8 January 1917. Appointed to the Veterinary Corps, George embarked six months later with the mission of caring for the horsepower on which the army depended.  After a period in the Australian Veterinary Hospital in Calais, George was posted to an artillery unit.  Read his story and see the wonderful photos from a family photograph album, kindly provided by the Wilson family.

George's brother Tom Wilson had embarked in 1916 and served with the 21 Infantry Battalion.   

Pte John Dalglish, 21 Inf Bn

 

Soldiers of the 21 Inf Bn searching the village of Hamel for 

survivors, July 1918 (Australian War Memorial Collection E02666)

Private John Dalglish arrived in France in February 1917 to reinforce the 21 Infantry Battalion, AIF, and from that time forward, apart from periods in hospital or on leave, was involved in very heavy fighting.  In July the Australian took the village of Hamel (or what survived of it) from the Germans in ninety-three minutes.  Rod Martin tells of this and other battles which Dalglish survived, only to succumb to broncho-pneumonian in December 1918, not long after the Armistice.  Read his story here.