Studio portrait of 5129 Private (Pte) Eric Lang, 48th Battalion. A farmer of Donnybrook, WA, he ...

Studio portrait of 5129 Private (Pte) Eric Lang, 48th Battalion. A farmer of Donnybrook, WA, he enlisted on 6 January 1916 and sailed from Fremantle on HMAT Stropshire with the 16th Reinforcements on 31 March 1916. He was killed in action on 8 August 1916, near the windmill at Pozieres. He is commemorated on panel 146, Villers Bretonneux, France. 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. (ROH same portrait found at H06495)