Studio portrait of 1986B Lance Corporal (LCpl) Claude Alexander Porter, 3rd Reinforcements, 20th ...

Studio portrait of 1986B Lance Corporal (LCpl) Claude Alexander Porter, 3rd Reinforcements, 20th Battalion, of Wellington, NSW (left) and an unidentified soldier. LCpl Porter enlisted on 21 June 1915 and embarked from Sydney aboard HMAT Runic on 9 August 1915. He arrived later that month at Gallipoli Peninsula where he served with his unit for a few months before being transferred to the 18th Battalion and sent to the Western Front in France. Porter's unit operated on the Western Front for some time before moving to the area known as Hangard Wood near Villers-Bretonneux, where they established three posts in the front of the main front line. On 15 April 1918, Porter was sent on a patrol of the area during which he came upon a German officer and two men and succeeded in capturing them, although they escaped during a stiff fire fight which had begun. Porter returned to one of the three posts which had been established but was killed in action when all three posts were over run by the Germans. For Porters action on that day in capturing three Germans, the Military historian, C E W Bean, thought the incident significant enough to be recorded and described in Volume 5 of the Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918. Porter is buried in the Military Cemetery at Villers-Bretonneux, France.