INMAN, John William (Jack) - Not in Photo

INMAN, Edwin Stanley - RTA ID# 154

154

  inman john william1

 

I do hope we will be spared to return to you dear people again

 

Australia is at war!

It was in August 1914 and with a heavy heart that Caroline Barlow learnt that Australia was at war.

Married at eighteen, she had given birth to thirteen children, eight by her abusive first husband, George Inman and five by her much younger second husband, Lambert Barlow.

Alvared Roe Cecil CLIFTON - RTA ID# 184

Selfless to a fault 184

 

... tall, strong, suave and unperturbed, selfless to a fault, (he) was held in high esteem by his comrades ...

 

In his memoir of the 1914-1918 war years, George Medcalf described his 11th Battalion friend Alvared Clifton thus

It would appear that Alvared or Alvie as he was known, was not only selfless but completely lacking in affectation. On the attestation paper he completed when enlisting for military service abroad, he wrote but one word ‘labourer’ in answer to question 5 - What is your trade or calling?

Ferdinand George MEDCALF - RTA - ID# 105

105


... an unusually modest type of man ...

Ferdinand George Medcalf's intelligence, leadership and courage earned him a Distinguished Service Order, a mention in despatches and a recommendation for a Military Cross.

He enlisted in the 11th Battalion AIF in 1914 as a Private and was invalided back to Australia in March 1917 as a Captain.

Ernest John MESSENGER - RTA - ID# 380

380


He lived a full life...

My great grandmother’s brother Ernest was born in South Australia in 1881. He was the second eldest of the eleven children born to George and Jane Messenger. For many years, George had worked as a lumper at the Adelaide docks but when gold was discovered in Western Australia, he decided to try his luck in the Kalgoorlie goldfields. The family relocated to Western Australia in 1898 when Ernest was seventeen and George found work hauling water for the prospectors.

Hector Miller - RTA - ID# 439

Hector MILLER, 10 Jan 1915, Khufu Pyramid, ID#439


Loyalty and a bitter twist of fate....

 

Hector Miller's grandson Keith, tells us about his grandfather 

"... for a man who endured a host of unfortunate circumstances in life, he was a remarkably kind person and was bereft of the bitterness that seems a common affliction today. Perhaps the hardscrabble life of turn-of-the century Australian immigrants simply didn’t accommodate self-pity and complaining."

Walter William Goodlet - RTA - ID# 336

Walter William GOODLET, 10 Jan 1915, Cheops Pyramid, Egypt - ID#336

 

Memories of many a dawn on the heights of Gallipoli...

 

On 25 April 1915, Wally Goodlet of the 11th Battalion, only days out of his teens, was one of the first West Australian boys to land at Gallipoli.

Some twenty years later, after constant pressuring from his eldest son, he wrote of the landing and of seeing his closest friend Robbo die in his arms even as his platoon was disembarking from the destroyer to the craft which would carry them to that fatal shore.