Bullet damaged wallet : Sergeant Percy Mortimer, 21st Battalion, AIF

Leather wallet with fold over flap secured by two metal press studs. A bullet has created a diagonal split in the wallet, from upper right to lower left.

Born in Gloucestershire, England, Percy Mortimer was employed as a farm labourer at Yarram, Victoria when he enlisted in the AIF at Yea on 17 March 1915, aged 19. After initial training he was posted a private, service number 425, to B Company of the newly raised 21st Battalion. The unit sailed from Melbourne on HMAT A38 Ulysses on 10 May. After training in Egypt the battalion landed at Gallipoli on 7 September.

In 1916 the battalion transferred to France for service on the Western Front. Mortimer was awarded the Military Medal for action at Mouquet Farm on 26 August for conspicuous gallantry and endurance as a runner between the front line and battalion headquarters while under heavy machine gun and artillery fire.

Mortimer was wounded in the side and right arm at Broodseinde Ridge, Belgium on 4 October 1917. Evacuated to hospital he did not rejoin his battalion until the end of the year. As a platoon sergeant he was awarded a bar to his Military Medal for conspicuous gallantry, devotion to duty and contempt for danger during an action at Ville-sur-Ancre, France on 19 May 1918.

Before Mortimer returned to Australia in April 1919 he handed in this damaged wallet to the Australian War Records Section with the information that in deflecting the bullet which caused the damage seen here, it saved him from certain injury or death. The place where this occurred was not recorded at the time.