38th Battalion on the spot

A machine-gun post on the Somme Canal - deceptively quiet in 1918. 

 Private William James Bale enlisted on Anzac Day 1917.  Once in England for training he became ill and spent some time in hospital and convalescing.  He did not arrive in France until February 1918.  Intended for the 59th Battalion, he was transferred as soon as he arrived in France to the 38th Battalion.  

Rod Martin outlines the Australians' campaign of 1918 that contributed to the end of the war, and William's part in it.  

Trove of WW1 photos found in Vignacourt, Somme Valley

From The Age today, the story of a cache of 3,000 photographs, known as "The Thuillier Collection" of Australian and Allied soldiers taken behind the lines in Vignacourt in the Somme Valley.  A story on these photos will show on Channel 7 tonight at 6.30 pm Eastern Standard Time. The photos were taken in 1916, and later in 1918.    See the photos on the Channel 7 website.

A smaller trove of photos of mainly Tommies, but which also includes some Australians, was reported in The Independent in 2009, taken in late 1915 and early 1916.

See also the Australian War Memorial blog with an article by Peter Burness.

UPDATE:  And there is a Facebook page - thanks to Linda for the link.

ANOTHER UPDATE:  The above links  now do not appear to show the whole set of photos,  so see the report on the Lost Diggers from the AWM here.   As at December 2011 these photos do  not appear to have been added to the AWM online catalogue.

ANOTHER UPDATE:  You can now call up the full set of photographs of Louis Thuillier by going to the Collections part of the AWM website and putting Thuillier in the search engine. You will get 814 results.  These photos have a copyright statement on them.