German pipe fragment: Lieutenant William Frederick 'Eric' Shirtley, 16th Battalion AIF

Pipe stem fragment (from the mouthpiece down 45mm). The stem is splintered and the mouthpiece displays evidence of bite marks.

German smoking pipe stem fragment recovered from a battlefield in France by Lieutenant William Frederick Shirtley.

William Shirtley, known as Eric to his family, was a 22 year old shop assistant living in Dubbo when he enlisted on 20 September 1914. He was posted to the 13th Battalion with service number 317. He served on Gallipoli where he rose to the rank of sergeant. After the evacuation of the peninsula and training in Egypt, he transferred to France where he was was posted to the 16th Battalion. He was promoted second lieutenant on 25 July 1916 and returned to the 13th Battalion two months later. On 16 October, he was wounded while on supply fatigues but remained on duty.

Shirtley was promoted lieutenant in mid-December 1916. On 11 April 1917, in the early morning attack at Bullecourt, he was declared missing in action. It was not until mid-1918 that his widowed mother Caroline was informed that he had been killed by machine gun fire; his body was never located. His name is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneaux Memorial.

In the meantime some of his effects were returned to Australia but all they contained were clothing. It took two letters of complaint from his mother and the best part of a year before his other effects were located and delivered to his mother.

His mother wrote to the Australian War Memorial: 'he used to write home every mail and send along menu cards, programmes or any other thing he wished kept. I have his Anzac medal, 3 views of Amiens Cathedral, a German Field Telephone, a German tassel off a sword and a pipe.'