Australian 1915 leather pattern haversack : Driver A C Carter, 18 Battery, 6 Field Artillery Brigade, AIF

Cotton webbing haversack in the Australian 1915 pattern. The rectangular bag is constructed with a gusset and front flap. The flap is secured by two pale leather straps and metal buckles. An adjustable pale leather strap is attached to either side by a metal buckle and has four sets of five holes for attaching other pieces of equipment. The haversack is frayed and stained from use and marked on the inside with both the manufacturer's and the owner's details. Although these markings are mostly illegible, it is possible to make out a broad arrow stamp and near the frayed edge 'A. C. CA/ 866', the beginning of the owner's name and service number. Haversack is empty.

This haversack was carried 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.