Sgt James Grant Anderson's war

Driver Rupert Clive Jones, left, and Lance Corporal James Grant Anderson at the Alexandria Military Cemetery,  c 1915.

James Grant Anderson, on the right, a farmer of Essendon and Keilor, married Elsie Dixon in October 1913.  In September 1914 James stepped forward to do what he considered to be his duty as a citizen, and in October 1914 he left his expectant bride to do his earnest best in service of the Empire for the next four years.

Lovingly kept in the family, Jim's photos, letters, telegrams and souvenirs tell the story of his service, of his eventual longing to be home, and his attempts to be a father to the daughter he had yet to meet.   Three of Jim's brothers were also on active service.  Gordon Anderson's photo albums were posted about a few weeks ago.

World War 1 in colour

A photo essay from Time LightBox shows a series of rare colour images from the front-line in France during World War 1.


The above photograph is not one of the LightBox series, which carry a copyright mark, but appears in a group of comments about a set of images from the  Library of Congress.  The commenter noted that the original French uniforms had red pants, which led to enormous casualties from sniper fire early in the war.  The uniform was subsequently changed to the light blue in the picture.

Thanks to GeneaNet for highlighting the LightBox photos.

Who was "Shorty" Jackson?

Shorty Jackson on the left, and James Simonsen on the right. 

James Andrew Simonsen's grandson says that his grandfather had a great mate from the war called Shorty Jackson, and the photo above shows Shorty Jackson on the left, and Jim Simonsen on the right.

The problem is to identify Shorty Jackson.

James Simonsen embarked in 1915 with the 6th Field Ambulance.  He was dispatched to join the MEF on Gallipoli Peninsula on 30 August 1915.    A few months after the evacuation he was transferred to the 12th Field Ambulance, and embarked to join the MEF in France.

The photo of Shorty Jackson shows him as a Staff Sergeant.   I have searched the Embarkation rolls using the search terms 'Jackson' and 'Field Ambulance', and by checking their B2455 records only found two men who achieved the rank of Staff Sergeant who embarked with a Field Ambulance unit.  This doesn't mean someone didn't transfer in from a non-ambulance unit, but I'm inclined to think that those who did were not likely to rise to the rank of Staff Sergeant without experience in a Field Ambulance Unit.

The two men on my shortlist are Henry George Jackson who embarked and returned with the 1st Light Horse Field Ambulance Unit, and Herrick Jackson who embarked with the 4th Field Ambulance who likewise returned to Australia with his original unit.  Of the two men, Henry George Jackson was the most likely to have known James Simonsen both before and after the war, as they both came from Ascot Vale.  Herrick Jackson, on the other hand enlisted and was demobilised in South Australia.

The only period of service where they are most likely to have met up with each other was on the Gallipoli Peninsula.  After the war Henry and James possibly joined the same RSL at Moonee Ponds, and continued their friendship that way.

But is the man in the photo Henry George Jackson?  Henry never married.  His next of kin was named as his sister, Elizabeth Sophia Jackson who lived in Maribyrnong Road, Ascot Vale, and he had other brothers and a sister, so perhaps there is someone out there who is able to say whether or not Shorty Jackson is Henry George Jackson.  Anyone?

Bonds of Sacrifice

A Flickr account has been set up by the National Archives of Australia to provide access to photos of Australian servicemen contained in the Imperial War Museum, London. 

"We are delighted the National Archives is able to share digital images of Australian World War I servicemen received from the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) in 2011.

The digital images include photographs taken in London studios while servicemen were on leave and occasional newspaper clippings.

These images were identified by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) staff member Courtney Page-Allen, a recipient of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship. To find them, she spent 18 months searching through the 16,000 World War I images held in the Bonds of Sacrifice collection of the Imperial War Museum, London".

This is a quite extraordinary collection of photos.

Link updated 15/11/2018.

WW1 Pictorial Honour Rolls

Cpl Kenneth Yates of Essendon

A useful site for either posting photos or searching for photos of WW1 servicemen is this one for WW1 Pictorial Honour Roll

They are organised alphabetically by state.  You can also search by name. Many of the photos are from well-known sources, but many are from private sources.

Lost Heroes of the Great War

There must be many WW1 group photos out there in which one soldier is known and the others are unknown.  This photo shows Corporal James Anderson on the front right, but who are the others?  If you have photos like this, an interesting site where  you might post them is Lost Heroes of the Great War.  Link removed as the site has been taken over.  Don't yet know what became of the photos. 

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.