Breeches : Private E H Zerbe, 21 Battalion, AIF

Other ranks khaki woollen cord breeches. The breeches have a concealed five button fly. S six buttons are spaced around the waistband for the fitting of braces. All the buttons are plastic; most of them are stamped 'PAISLEYS LTD. GLASGOW'. The concealed placket fastening to the fly is lined with linen, while the waist is lined with cream cotton twill. The bottom edge of both cuffs is trimmed with a narrow band of pale khaki coloured cotton twill as is the top of the waistband. There is a slanted pocket on each side of the front waist and a buttoned welt pocket on the right rear. The inside legs are reinforced with self fabric. Each leg fastens below the knee with a lace threaded through eight pairs of eyelets. The eyelets have been finished by hand, and the cotton laces are present. The cuffs have been reinforced with linen.

Associated with the service of 2453 Private Edward Herman Zerbe, a 24 year old orchardist from Doncaster, Victoria who enlisted in the AIF on 12 July 1915. Assigned to the 5th reinforcements of 21 Battalion he embarked for overseas service aboard RMS Osterley on 29 September 1915. Zerbe remained in Egypt and did not join his battalion on Gallipoli. He was finally taken on strength in January 1916. After training in Egypt, 21 Battalion moved to France and service on the Western Front in March 1916. The battalion's first engagement was at Pozieres and Mouquet Farm in 1916. In May 1917 the battalion took part in the first battle of Bullecourt, followed, in October, by the advance which captured Broodseinde Ridge, east of Ypres in Belgium during the Third Battle of Ypres. In 1918 the 21st Battalion took part in fighting at Hamel, Amiens and Mont St Quentin. By September, after losing so many men in the final 1918 offensives, the battalion was barely able to muster a company. A proposal to disperse the men to other battalions in the 6th Brigade was vigorously resisted and the men were permitted to fight as a unit for their last battle of the war, on 5 October at Montbrehain. On 13 October the battalion was disbanded and the remaining men transferred to 24 Battalion. Private Zerbe was admitted to hospital in 16 November 1918 with fever which developed into bronchopneumonia (possibly the 'Spanish flu'). He was transferred to England and discharged from the Red Cross Hospital at Chelmsford in January 1919. Zerbe left to return to Australia on 7 February 1919. He was discharged medically unfit from the AIF on the 23 May 1919. The examining doctor noted that he 'looks depressed and nervy. Tremulous and sweaty hands', suggesting that he may have been suffering from delayed shell shock.