A love stronger than pain

Private Bill Kearsey was badly wounded in an artillery barrage at Glencorse Wood in Belgium. Doctors saved his life, but not his face. Shrapnel cut a deep gash in Bill’s forehead… » read more

A very different childhood

Joyce McGrath

Jack McGrath was eighteen when he enlisted to fight in the war. Right from the beginning of his service, Jack was plagued by illness and injury – pleurisy, pneumonia, and malaria… » read more

The joke of the Battalion

Ellis Silas

Ellis Silas wasn’t cut out to be a soldier. Slight build and frail constitution, the artist from London was first rejected for service. On his third attempt to enlist, the… » read more

A meddlesome priest

Bernard Linden Webb

At the outbreak of war, Hay’s Methodist minister, the Reverend Bernard Linden Webb declared himself a pacifist. Three months into the slaughter, his belief that war was wrong… » read more

Conscription by stealth

Giovanni Ferrando

Signor Giovanni Ferrando was a former consul for the Kingdom of Italy, a successful businessman, and twenty-two years an Australian resident. He volunteered for service in the… » read more

Gone to pieces

William Brown

William Brown enlisted when he was forty-three. Sent into the line, he suffered what they called ‘shell concussion’. Brown was trapped in the trenches for days on end, forced to… » read more

Attempting the impossible

Frederick Weir

Frederick Weir returned to Adelaide in 1918. He was just twenty-two when he joined the Army and most of his adult life had been spent at war. For almost four years he’d served… » read more

Aftermaths

Kathleen Skinner and James Agnew

After the First World War, around 15,000 European women, the vast majority British, married Australian soldiers. They boarded the troopships that carried these men to war and made… » read more

I baptise thee ‘Anzac’

Tasman Millington

In 1919, Tasman Millington married Ruth Martin. Together they travelled to Gallipoli and Tasman took up his post with the Imperial War Graves Commission.  When Millington had… » read more

Despite the darkness

Vernon Mullin

Vernon Mullin was 21 when he sailed for Gallipoli. He was shot and wounded during the Battle of Lone Pine. But worse was to come. Barely recovered, Vernon was ordered to return to… » read more