Lost Digger - Jack of the 20th Battalion - Updated

 Photo courtesy of Isabelle Godard, Vignacourt.

"Jack" on the left of the picture, had this photo taken in Montigny-le-Tilleul (Belgium) in 1919 and sent it to a French family in Vignacourt with his first name and his Battalion - the 20th - written on the back.  The family have kept that photo for all these years, and now would like to identify him.  Their enquiry ended up with The Lost Diggers volunteers to attempt to identify him.    

Volunteers Alison McCallum, Tim Lycett and Sandra Playle have identified the clues in the photo - his appearance fair, light coloured eyes, average stature, probably aged in his early thirties, late twenties  WW1 uniform, three overseas service chevrons on his right sleeve, and a wedding ring on his left hand.

After detailed research, Alison says "Jack had posted the photo to Vignacourt (Somme, France) from Montigny-le-Tilleul (Belgium) where he was stationed with 20th Battalion. Based on a search of the 20th Battalion War Diaries and the Quota lists and staff movement lists for 20th Battalion found in the diaries for 6 Feb - 30 April 1919, locating men with J as an initial, I started with a list of 90 surnames and initials. That was then narrowed down to any with Jack or John as given names. Finally further refined list working from clues in the photo, cross-checking with Embarkation Rolls, and Service Files and narrowed it to one soldier as a POSSIBLE."

I haven't included all of Alison's research here, but John Howarth Blythe served with a number of battalions, the 24th, 23rd, 17th, 19th, and in 1919 the 20th Battalion. 

Alison believes the soldier may be John Howarth BLYTHE of 27 Parsons St, Kensington who enlisted in 1916.  We would be very glad to hear from anyone who believes they can identify the man in the photo above, or confirm or otherwise his possible identification with Private 4622 J H Howarth.  PLEASE PHONE Alison McCallum  0400 063 718 OR E-MAIL mccallumalison8@gmail.com

Remember Me: The Lost Diggers of Vignacourt

Photo source:  The Lost Diggers Facebook

On exhibition 2 November 2012 until 31 July 2013 at the Australian War Memorial

To find the photos of the Lost Diggers, go to the search page of the Australian War Memorial, and put Thuillier in the search box.  You can narrow down the search by adding a surname.

See also the Facebook photo stream to view the photos. 

The book The Lost Diggers by Ross Coulthart is now available in bookstores.

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.