Identity disc: Australian Army - Private M A Buttel, 13 Battalion, AIF

Circular aluminium identity disc stamped 'M.A. BUTTEL / B / 1030 / 13 A I / J' and has a 4 mm suspension loop at the top.

Worn by 1030 Private Mark Albert Buttel who served in 13 Battalion, AIF during the First World War. Buttel was born in Victoria in 1896 and was a butcher until his enlistment on 28 September 1914. He embarked for overseas service aboard the troopship A38 'Ulysses' on 22 December 1914 and served on Gallipoli. In early May 1915 he was wounded by a gunshot to the back and was admitted to hospital in Alexandria. From June to September of that year he suffered various illnesses and was transferred between hospitals, occasionally rejoining his unit. He served at Gallipoli until the evacuation in December and then went on to France and the Western Front. He was hospitalised in Rouen with pyrexia and trench fever throughout February and March 1917. He was reported a prisoner of war of the Germans on 11 April 1917. He had been captured at Reincourt on 19 April 1917 and was subsequently held in a camp at Limburg. After nearly two years in captivity he arrived in Leith, Scotland on 19 January 1919 and was again admitted to hospital. He left for return to Australia on the hospital transport ship 'Bremen' on 4 June 1919. This identity disc would have been worn be Buttel until the beginning of 1916. A pair of discs made of composite fibre was then issued to all troops in place of the single aluminium one.