Studio portrait of 3808 Private (Pte) William Thurman Hutcheson, 6th Battalion, of Coleraine, ...

Studio portrait of 3808 Private (Pte) William Thurman Hutcheson, 6th Battalion, of Coleraine, Vic. A clerk with service in the militia before enlisting in August 1915, Pte Hutcheson left Australia for Egypt with the 12th Reinforcements in November 1915, and was transferred to the 58th Battalion as part of the 'doubling-up' of the AIF in April 1916. Arriving in France for service on the Western Front in June 1916, Pte Hutcheson was killed in action during the attack on the German positions at Fromelles on the night of 19/20th July 1916. According to his Red Cross Wounded and Missing File, Pte Hutcheson was in the battalion's grenade section and was killed instantly by a German machine-gun bullet soon after leaving the Australian positions. In a letter sent to Pte Hutcheson's mother, 3243 Pte Alfred Allan, a close friend of Pte Hutcheson's, writes: "I had been his mate in camp in Egypt..and we were like two brother and we used to have good times in the trenches. We were both bombers in a charge that took place and we were both together when I got hit with a bullet in the thigh and your son kept going but got hit before ge hot to the German lines. I was that sorry when I was told about it that I sat down and cried as he was such a nice lad and so plicky". Pte Hutcheson was aged 20 at the time of his death.

• Pre-war studio portrait of 22108 Private (Pte) Arnold Joseph Wallace Bailey, 8th Field Artillery ...