Alma Cresswell Kendall contemplating the grave of her brother, Major (Maj) Eric Winfield Connelly ...

Alma Cresswell Kendall contemplating the grave of her brother, Major (Maj) Eric Winfield Connelly DSO, 3rd Australian Division Headquarters (HQ), at Heath Cemetery, Harbonnieres, France. Whilst serving in France with the 10th Brigade, Maj Connelly was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) on 18 April 1918 for 'untiring energy and skill under trying circumstances'. After he was gassed on the morning of 7 June 1917 during an attack on Messines Ridge, and rendered unconscious for eight hours, Major (Maj) Connelly went forward to Battalion HQ and organised a successful attack on the enemy line, returning through intense shell fire in a state of complete exhaustion. The following year Maj Connelly died of wounds in France on 9 September 1918, aged 29 years. Alma Kendall's only other brother, Captain Clive Emmerson Connelly, 14th Battalion, had been killed in action on 28 August 1915 at Hill 60 on the Gallipoli Peninsula, aged 30 years. Alma's husband, Colonel Ernest Arthur Kendall, Deputy Director of Veterinary Services, survived both the Boer War and the First World War.