7903 Sapper William Henry Moss was almost 35 years old when he enlisted on 29 June 1917. William was allocated to the
Tunnelling Company reinforcements. After training he departed Melbourne late in 1917 and arrived in France on 24 January 1918. His service record suggests that one month later he was in England where he remained until June 1918 and was returned to Australia. The service record gives no indication of the reason for this early return. AIF tunnellers were featured in the film
Beneath Hill 60.
William's medal entitlement is the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. He died on 1 May 1935. Thank you to Mrs Marshall who sent me the medal and Anne H who did the research which provided the key that unlocked what I had already put together.
The retuned medal tally is now 1250.
Damien Finlayson has written a bookon Australian Tunnellers.
ReplyDeleteFrom the research I have done into soldiers from the mining regions of WA they appeared to be 30 - 40 (sometimes older), Originally because they were working in gold mining they were not required to enlist but later that had to change.
What I did notice was how many came back home with lumbago, sciatica, back problems, knee problems and rheumatism along with debility. I suspect many of them went off to war with the same problems due to mining.
Well done again Glyn