Trench art letter opener : Driver A C Carter, 18 Battery, 6 Field Artillery Brigade, AIF

Brass trench art letter opener in the form of a small dagger. It is engraved by hand on one side with the words 'Souvenir Somme Battle 1916'.

This letter opener was made from remnants of a shell by 8665 Driver Arthur Charles Carter. A 23 year old labourer from the Indigo valley area near Chiltern, Vic, he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 19 October 1915. He joined 6 Field Artillery Brigade and sailed with the 1st Reinforcements aboard HMAT Persic on 22 November 1915. Carter was attached to 18 Battery, serving for a few months in Egypt and then, from March 1916, on the Western Front. His time there included service on the Somme, at Pozieres, Bois Grenier, Ploegsteert and Ypres. On the last day of 1916 was admitted to hospital in France and was sent to England three weeks later suffering 'nervous shock'. After six months in an English hospital he boarded a ship for Australia, sailing on 22 July 1917. He was discharged on 29 October as medically unfit, diagnosed with shell shock.