Claiming a Brother

Having delivered ammunition supplies to the guns, unidentified members of the Australian Divisional Ammunition Column gallop past a dangerous crossroad.  Courtesy of the Australian War Memorial, EZ0073.

Writing in 1967 to collect his ANZAC medallion, Jim Nutt explained his change of Regimental Number:  "Gallipoli.... was there until the evacuation.  On arrival back in Egypt I was claimed by my older brother to his Unit, unknown to me".

This chance reference to "claiming" by a brother in a piece of correspondence from 1967 set Marilyn Kenny off on a hunt to discover how this claiming worked.  Even the Australian War Memorial couldn't come up with any written reference to explain what went on.  The AWM thought it was an informal arrangement.  Eventually a lone and persistent searcher at the AWM, David Gist, solved the puzzle.

Marilyn's article about the Nutt family of Murchison and Flemington explains the answer.  See "Claiming a brother: The Nutt family before and during the Great War".  

Ivers of 1 Divisional Ammunition Column

Australian War Memorial Collection.  EOO733

Driver Sydney John Ivers of Ascot Vale worked in a mule train like this one, carrying ammunition to the guns on the front lines.  He received a wound from an exploding shell in Belgium in October 1917 and was evacuated to England.  The injury to his hand resulted in some fingers being amputated, but his problems did not end there.   See Rod Martin's story of his service here.