Grave in the Christian cemetery of 8053 Petty Officer (PO) Stephen John Gilbert, crewmember of ...

Grave in the Christian cemetery of 8053 Petty Officer (PO) Stephen John Gilbert, crewmember of the submarine HMAS AE2 and then prisoner of war captured by the Turks on 30 April 1915. He died on 9 October 1916 aged 39 years, from malaria and typhus, while working on the Baghdad to Berlin Railway. Later his body was reinterned in the war cemetery at Baghdad. This photograph was part of 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. (original held in AWM archive store. Same image held at P01645.004)