Tonight I found a bit more info about my grandmother's brother who died in 1917. I knew he & his unmarried brothers enlisted very soon after war was declared (4th August 1914) & fought at Gallipoli & on the Western front.

The Australia War Museum site contains information about everyone who served in Boer War to the wars of the mid 20th Century.

I found his regiment's Embarkation notice with date of embarkation (18th October 1914) - probably from the wharf down the road & around the corner from me as many troop ships used it.

His Date of Joining is blank but as everyone else on the page joined between 12-28 August I assume he & the few others with blank entries joined around the same time.

He was 20 years old & the men on the page ranged in age from 19 to 38 with most in their 20s & all were single. They came from Sydney & it's suburbs, & country towns, their occupations ranged from clerks, to farm workers, they were tradesman & unskilled. Most Next of Kin were Australian, some were British. One Labourer who lived in the People's palace, a Salvation Army hotel, had no next of kin.

Several month ago I sent a photograph of him to the museum as they are trying to collect photos of all service people who died in action.

James Royal Lambert

sandra

a musical note -

Eric Bogle's great song "And the band Played Waltzing Matilda " contains the line "they gave him a tin hat & they gave him a gun"

This is artistic licence - tin hats were not worn at Gallipoli. Australian troops didn't get hard hats until they went to France.