Victory Medal : Corporal W Divall, 6 Light Horse Regiment, AIF

Victory Medal. The recipient's details are impressed on the edge. Obverse: The winged, full length figure of Victory, with her arm extended and holding a palm branch in her right hand. Reverse: The inscription 'THE GREAT WAR FOR CIVILIZATION 1914 - 1919' on four lines surrounded by a laurel wreath. Fitted with a thin loose suspension ring attached to a lug at the top of the disc and a piece of 37 mm watered rainbow pattern ribbon, having the colours red, yellow, green, blue and violet from the centre outwards.

Awarded to 63 Corporal William Divall, 6 Light Horse Regiment who enlisted at Newcastle, NSW on 18 September 1914. Divall, who was born in Goulburn in 1865, had previously served in Sudan (1885) and South Africa (1900). In his enlistment application for the First World War he stated that he was 45, employed as a railway guard, and had had no previous military service. He assigned as a private to A Squadron, 6 Light Horse Regiment, AIF. On 1 October 1914 he was promoted to corporal. The regiment sailed for overseas service from Sydney on December 1914, aboard HMAT A29 Suevic. After training in Egypt Divall landed on Gallipoli with his regiment on 15 May 1915. On 25 July he was evacuated to hospital on Mudros suffering from influenza, neuralgia and rheumatism. At the end of July he was transferred to Malta and then, on 22 August, to England. He was assessed unfit for further military service and returned to Australia on 8 May 1916, where he was discharged. He was still unable to work in 1917 and received a military pension for his disability. Divall died in 1935.