Studio portrait of 412 Private (Pte) Norman Francis Donaldson, 28th Battalion. A clerk of ...

Studio portrait of 412 Private (Pte) Norman Francis Donaldson, 28th Battalion. A clerk of Fremantle, WA, he enlisted on 3 March 1915 and sailed from Fremantle on HMAT Ascanius with C Company, 28th Infantry Battalion, 7th Infantry Brigade, on 29 June 1915. He was killed in action on 4 October 1917, when, while digging in for the night, he and two more of his platoon, 3240 Pte Victor Gerald Pyke and 3219 Pte Henry Nolan, were buried by debris thrown up by heavy shelling. Pte Pyke was a 19 year old harnessmaker from Claremont, WA and Pte Nolan was a 26 year old farm hand from Fremantle, WA. Both men sailed on HMAT Medic on 18 January 1916 from Fremantle, WA. They are commemorated together on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Belgium. This photograph is from an Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau file. The Bureau, which commenced operation in October 1915, sought to identify, investigate and respond to enquiries made regarding the fate of Australian personnel. It investigated the majority of personnel posted as wounded and missing on official Army lists, as well as written enquiries from concerned relatives and friends. Approximately 32,000 individual case files were opened for Australian personnel who were reported as wounded or missing during the First World War. The Bureau employed searchers to operate both at the front and in Britain. They searched official lists of wounded and missing, interviewed comrades of missing soldiers in hospitals and wrote to men on active service. Altogether 400,000 responses were sent back to those who placed enquiries with the Bureau.