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
She hath done what she could
Edith Moorhouse
Edith Moorhouse was born in Undera, a small town outside Kyabram in country Victoria. Her mother died in 1891 at the age of thirty-eight; her father the year later. At the age of… » read more
Written out of history
William Irwin
William Irwin was the only Aboriginal soldier CEW Bean mentioned by name in his official history of the Great War. In many ways, he was an exemplary soldier and the embodiment of… » read more
Born of the wings of high adventure
Charles Campbell
Charles Bruce Campbell was born in 1890 at Yarralumla homestead, now the site of Australia’s government house but then the seat of the Campbell family’s pastoral empire. Doted on… » read more
The man in the bath
Samuel Rolfe
Gas was one of the Great War’s greatest horrors. There were seventeen types of gas developed during the Great War. The Allies and the Germans competed for new ways to blind, choke… » read more
Such a small favour
Emily Luttrell
Emily Luttrell first approached the Minister of Defence in June 1922. ‘Please pardon me for taking the liberty of writing,’ she began, ‘if you could see your way to help me ... I… » read more
I still have the bullet in my body
James Dann
Private James Dann, a fisherman from Broome, enlisted soon after the Gallipoli Landings. He was sent to the Peninsula, wounded at Lone Pine, and sent home with a bullet in his… » read more
All that crying
Rigney Brothers
We don’t know why Rufus and Cyril Rigney, Ngarrindjeri men from the Port Macleay Mission, chose to join up. Perhaps it was the hope of something better than toiling on a farm;… » read more
The Angel of the prison camps
Mary Chomley
Nearly five thousand Australian and New Zealand troops were taken prisoner on the Western Front. Conditions differed in every camp but by the end of the war their situation was… » read more
Died of shell shock
Royce Baesjou
Royce Baesjou worked as a bank clerk and served part-time in the Western Australian Artillery Militia prior to joining up. A southern son of Empire, he believed—passionately—in… » read more
