A fellow Australian killed him

Allan Whittaker

Allan Whittaker, a waiter from Yarraville Victoria, was one of the first to enlist, one of the first to fight on Gallipoli and one of the first to be wounded. On the morning of… » read more

A useful citizen frustrated

Douglas Grant

Douglas Grant was one of around a thousand Indigenous Australians who served with the First AIF. But in many ways this was not his war. So-called ‘full blood’ Aborigines were not… » read more

A vast tide of grief

Frank Roberts

Garry Roberts’ son was killed at Mont St Quentin in September 1918. His first response was confusion, disbelief, and denial. And compounding the tragedy was that the war itself… » 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

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

His own brand of broken men

As a young man Walter Bagenal was apprenticed in Bordeaux, the wine capital of the world. In 1894, he ventured to the other side of the world to the newly planted vineyards of the… » read more

I hate the business of war

John Monash

John Monash was a soldier. He commanded Australian troops in Gallipoli, Belgium and France. He brought many of those men home. Under Monash’s guidance, some 160,000 men and women… » read more

My broken heart

Frances Edgeworth Somers

Today it is impossible to imagine Melbourne’s skyline without the Shrine of Remembrance. But to the generation that built Victoria’s state war memorial, its final form was far… » read more

The man who died twice

David Bisset

David Bisset went to fight the First World War on two separate occasions. In 1915, the young ironmonger from Aberdeen enlisted in Brisbane and with the 59th Battalion fought at… » read more

Whatever time they had left

Adam Wardrop

Adam Gladstone Wardrop was a horse driver from Mackay in Queensland. In 1916, he saddled up one last time, rode to Rockhampton and enlisted to serve in the Great War. Wardrop left… » read more