Outdoor portrait of 275 Private (Pte) (later Corporal (Cpl)) Alfred Linacre Harston MM, 13th ...

Outdoor portrait of 275 Private (Pte) (later Corporal (Cpl)) Alfred Linacre Harston MM, 13th Light Horse Regiment (left) and an unidentified Australian soldier, sitting on camels in front of the Sphinx and Great Pyramid at Giza. A local man, presumably the owner of the camels, is sitting on the ground holding a tether, and more Australian soldiers can be seen in the background. An electrician before enlisting on 31 December 1914, Alfred Harston embarked from Melbourne as a Private with the Headquarters and Machine Gun Section on HMAT Persic on 28 May 1915. He was a machine gun instructor in Egypt, and served on Gallipoli before transferring to the 5th Division Military Mounted Police. He was taken on strength of the Military Mounted Police in France on 16 September 1916, and promoted to Corporal on 1 January 1917. He was awarded the Military Medal on 8 October 1917 for actions at Menin Advanced Dressing Station on 26 September 1917. With 5470 Trooper (Tpr) Donald Robertson, he maintained the flow of traffic despite heavy shelling and bombing. Both Cpl Harston and Tpr Robertson were killed in action at Daours on 20 May 1918, when a shell hit their billet. Cpl Harston was 24 years old at the time of his death.