German cigarette case with Iron Cross, 8 August 1918: Corporal Robert Wain, 19th Battalion, AIF

Rectangular chrome-plated cigarette case with rounded corners, internal hinge and a spring clip release. A small black painted brass German Iron Cross is soldered to the top left corner of the lid. The chrome plating has almost completely rubbed off the lid, and mostly from the reverse, and the exposed steel has suffered surface corrosion. The interior is finished in a gold paint or alloy and is supplied with a pair of captive yellow cotton elastic retainers. There are no markings.

Cigarette case taken from a German prisoner, 8 August 1918 by 4261 Sergeant Robert Wain. Wain was born at Sydney, NSW. He worked as a shearer before enlisting in the AIF on 10 December 1915 and embarked for England, via Egypt with the 10th reinforcements for 19th Battalion aboard HMAT Orsova on 11 March 1916 from Sydney.

Wain had been an acting NCO, but reverted to private in November 1916. He continued to be promoted until April 1917, when he became a sergeant. On 3 May he was wounded in the right knee and was evacuated to England. He rejoined his unit in France May 1918, before falling ill and being admitted to hospital. Wain rejoined his unit in July.

On the evening of 7 August, 19th Battalion moved from their billets at Aubigny near Villers-Bretonneux to the jumping off tape just outside the Aubigny trench system in preparation for the 8 August assault. They were supported by tanks. A heavy fog fell around 4 am, only 20 minutes before zero hour. The battalion became somewhat scattered during the assault, but were gathered when the fog lifted at 6 am. The War Diary states 'Enemy fired machine guns at random and were located by sound and information obtained from prisoners on the spot; small parties of our troops frequently overpowering them or driving them back. .. Soon after 5 am our advanced parties reported having attained their objective, i.e. trench 800 m west of Warfusse-Abancourt, astride the main road.' The battalion held these positions for the remainder of the day as other battalions and tanks rolled past them. The war diary reports 'captured material was assembled and dumped for transport: dugouts ransacked for documents, papers and articles of value.' Some 25 light and 12 heavy machine guns were captured and around 450 prisoners. Sergeant Wain recalled 'I retained this when searching a machine gun sergeant after taking he and crew prisoner during the attack', but [I] was shot shortly thereafter in the left thigh. He was one of 35 men in his battalion wounded on this day and was evacuated back to England.

Upon his recovery Wain was transferred to 3rd Battalion in December 1918 and returned to France. He returned to England where he was attached to AIF Headquarters in April. On 23 April 1919 he married Ettie Evelyn Hockley at Barton Mills in Suffolk. He disembarked in Australia on 10 August 1919 and was discharged in July 1920. Wain served again in the Second World War with 2/2 Australian Boring Platoon with the service number NX72681.