Group portrait of unidentified people, believed to be members of Red Cross headquarters. The ...

Group portrait of unidentified people, believed to be members of Red Cross headquarters. The photographer, 2875 Private John Richard Cash, 19th Battalion, had been a Prisoner of war held at Holzminden Camp. Cash, a Sydney photographer, enlisted on 18 February 1916 in reinforcements to the 56th Battalion but was re-assigned to the 19th Battalion on his arrival in France. He was listed as missing on 3 May 1917, during the Battle of Bullecourt. Several witnesses claimed that they had seen him die, but in fact he had been badly wounded in the shoulder and partially buried in a shell hole. Rescued and captured by German soldiers, Cash spent the next sixteen weeks in German hospitals near Hannover and Celle before being discharged to Soltan Barrack 30 at Lager 1. In November 1917 he was moved to Holzminden Prisoner of War Camp. In June 1918 he recorded in a postcard to his family that the Germans had issued him with a new set of false teeth. Although some prisoners made a successful escape from Holzminden in July 1918, Cash was not among them, but he had made copies of a map to assist the others escape. He was repatriated to Hull, in England, on 17 December 1918 and returned to Australia on 25 March 1919.