100th Digger from Vignacourt Identified

Despite the travelling schedule for the exhibition Remember me: the lost diggers of Vignacourt being cut short, the Australian public’s interest in this unique collection of photographic images continues.

Now, in the centenary year of the outbreak of the First World War, the hundredth Australian soldier from the collection of glass-plate negatives has been identified.

He is 1092 Private Alexander Duncan Cameron of the 29th Battalion. Born in the Brimpaen area, a little spot about 40 kilometres south of Horsham, Victoria, Cameron was a farmer at the time he enlisted, joining the newly raised 29th Battalion. Like other Victorians of the time, he must have been aware of the number of casualties suffered during the Gallipoli campaign, but signed up anyway in July 1915.

Cameron was wounded in his unit’s first battle at Fromelles, a place that has come to typify the carnage and futility of the First World War. The 29th Battalion was in Vignacourt for several weeks in November 1916, resting, training and re-equipping before heading back into the line, and it was during this period that he had his photograph taken by Louis and Antoinette Thuillier. In May 1917 he was transferred to the Provost Corps, the AIF’s military police. Accounts of Australian soldiers in their leisure hours, whom the Provosts would have to police, can give the impression that this posting was not a soft option. Alex Cameron survived the war and returned home in 1919.

Those who have been able to visit Remember me will recall the large touch screen enabling visitors to peruse the entire collection and zoom in on individual faces. It was by browsing through the collection in this manner that Private Cameron’s granddaughter in Adelaide was able to identify him. It is the only positive identification that has resulted from the exhibition’s stint at the State Library of South Australia, and like most of the identifications from this collection depended on a member of the public to bring it to light.

Private Cameron was an ideal cut of digger for this distinction. His lean stature and weather-beaten features are what one would expect from a man who was born into a life on the land, and are in accord with the popular image of the bronzed Aussie bushman. We now know that Private Cameron and those like him were the exception rather than the norm; most First World War diggers came from the larger towns and capital cities.

Private Cameron joins the ranks of 48 other identified soldiers from the state of Victoria, many of whom gave truly distinguished service. They include men like Lieutenant Alexander Berchevaise, Sergeant Edward Falloon, and Lance Corporal Ernest Cubbins. Two units that are of particular note are the 5th and 6th Battalions, two Victorian units among the first raised at the outbreak of the First World War and which are well represented in the collection of photographs from Vignacourt.

For those interested in a more forensic consideration of the collection, when this photograph was first studied by the Memorial it was assumed that the horizontal position of the rectangular colour patches worn by Alex Cameron and his two comrades meant that these were men of the 1st Division. On looking deeper it was found that when the 5th Division was raised in the latter half of 1915 its first four battalions, including Private Cameron’s 29th Battalion, were allotted colour patches worn in this horizontal position. About three months after this photograph was taken, all these units were ordered to orientate their colour patches to stand vertically, in keeping with other units of the 5th Division.

The entire collection of photographs can be viewed on the Memorial’s website at www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/remember-me. The exhibition Remember me: the lost diggers of Vignacourt closes in Adelaide on 19 October 2014 and opens at its final venue at the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney on 1 November 2014. If you are in Adelaide or Sydney during these periods, do try to catch it. We at the Memorial think this collection is really very special.