Henry William Parkinson MM as a gunner 107th Howitzer Battery 7th Field Artillery Brigade 3rd Division Artillery AIF, France 1916-1918 and Volunteer Defence Corps 1939-1945, interviewed by his grandson Mark Bailey.

Parkinson speaks of his family background and early employment; enlistment in the Australian Imperial Force; training at Holsworthy Army Camp; journey to England aboard troopship HMAT Argyllshire; transfer to artillery from infantry; further training on the Salisbury Plain; departure for France; his experience of artillery actions at Armentieres, Passchendaele, Ypres and the Somme; Salvation Army support of troops; German use of gas and resulting casualties; observations on American, German and French troops; enlistment and service of his brother Percy; the Armistice in 1918; the post-First World War influenza epidemic; return to Australia aboard HMAT Armagh; the quality of food on the ship compared with field rations; notification of the award of the Military Medal; reflections on German shelling; employment in the inter-war years; his marriage; the Depression; his service in the Volunteer Defence Corps in the Second World War; United States Army units in the Newcastle area in the Second World War. Parkinson further reflects on the First World War - the use of German prisoners of war in France to carry Australian wounded back from the front line and to return with ammunition; his experience of the Somme Offensive; the use of observation balloons; his being awarded the Military Medal in action at Bray; his experience of the battle at Villers Bretonneux during the German offensive of 1918; return to Australia at the end of the war. Transcript is available.