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 most particular friend

John Hutchinson

John Hutchinson was shot by a sniper at Gallipoli. It would take Private Hutchinson over two hours to die. It is said that in the last moments of life, a dying man’s thoughts turn… » read more

A vacant look in his eyes

Alfred Atkins

When Alfred Atkins enlisted he claimed he was forty-five, but in truth, he was closer to sixty. We don't know why Alfred Atkins went to war, nor do we know why he took his own… » read more

Almost within sight of Australia

Narrelle Hobbes

Narrelle Hobbes was born in Tilba Tilba, trained as a nurse and enlisted in London in 1915. Through the long course of the war she served in British hospitals in Malta and Sicily… » read more

Amongst the first ashore at Anzac

Bernhardt Walther

Bernhardt Hermann Walther enlisted in Perth at the outbreak of the war. His grandfather had immigrated to Australia from Germany in the 1840s. Bernie was blonde, blue-eyed, and… » read more

At breaking point

Frank Wilkinson

Frank Wilkinson, a farmer from Banyena in Victoria, sailed off to war in 1916. He served in Egypt, contracted pneumonia in France and was nursed for gunshot wounds in England.… » read more

Hard up against it

Dennis ‘Paddy’ Hauenstein

Dennis Hauenstein was repatriated home soon after the war ended. Suffering from rheumatic fever, jaundice, and shrapnel wounds, the former stretcher-bearer found it hard to get… » read more

Inventing Anzac Day in England

Alfred Sharp

On the eve of the Great War, Alfred Sharp was appointed the Victorian Immigration Officer in London. He sailed off to ‘the old country’ in 1912. In England, Sharp advocated the… » read more

Something to remember him by

William Maynard

At the outbreak of the Great War around 170 Aboriginal people lived on Cape Barren Island. Islanders earned a living from fishing, sealing, whaling, and snaring animals. From… » read more

Their name liveth for evermore?

Abas Bhawoodeen Ghansar

Abas Bhawoodeen Ghansar was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) at the height of the British Raj. The young man worked his passage to Australia (via London) and landed in Sydney in 1907.… » read more