Bullet damaged wallet and contents : Private D J Richards (Pitty), 9 Battalion, AIF

Black leather wallet with chrome plated metal fittings and hinged in two places. Interior is supplied with four pockets and is lined with green polished cotton. A bullet hole of approximately 10mm diameter has punched through the wallet; the bullet itself is stored in a pocket of wallet and is 30mm long and 8mm diameter with 5 rifling grooves. Another pocket contains a postcard (140mm x 60mm) showing middle eastern buildings titled 'HELIPOLIS - Boulevard Abbas' which also displays bullet hole. Also stored in the wallet is a mirror in a canvas cover (130mm x 80mm x 5mm) which has been smashed by the bullet impact; the broken pieces are still inside their cover. The wallet also originally contained a small notebook which was used by the owner as a diary until two days prior to his death. This was also affected by the bullet but has been removed and appears as PR84/128.

Related to the service of Desmond Stanley Pitty, a tailor of Kingaroy, Queensland, born at Goulburn, NSW in 1884. Pitty enlisted in Brisbane on 24 July 1915 using the pseudonym of David John Richards and, under service number 2835A, was assigned as a reinforcement to 25 Battalion. After training, he embarked from Brisbane on 21 October 1915 aboard HMAT Seang Bee. As Pitty and his fellow reinforcements neared the Suez Canal, the decision had been made to create sixteen new AIF battalions by halving the strength of the original 16 battalions and bringing the resulting 32 half battalions up to strength with reinforcements. Thus, on 28 February, members of 25 Battalion reinforcements found themselves diverted into 9 Battalion at their camp at Gebel Habeita, where they stayed only a few weeks before being prepared for transfer to France. New rifles were issued and Lewis gun sections formed; they sailed for Marseilles aboard the liner Saxonia on 26 March and arrived on 3 April 1916. They entrained for Ypres and were eventually billeted in a farmhouse in the vicinity of Strazeele and Merris. For the next two weeks, Petty and his battalion drilled, trained and were issued with new equipment suitable for France, before being marched to Sailley-sur-la-Lys where they relieved the 17th Lancashire Fusiliers on 19 April. It is thought that Private Pitty, aka Richards, was one of 25 men of C Company killed when a German heavy howitzer shell exploded against the wall of their billet on the afternoon of 20 April 1916, also wounding a further 48 officers and men. Private Pitty is buried at the 13th London Grave Yard, Laventie, France. This wallet was among Pitty's personal effects that were sent home to his family after his death. The bullet and associated damge to the wallet does not appear to be related to the shrapnel damage from the shell that killed him and the wallet may have been a souvenir, either of Pitty's training (he did not see front line service before his death), or that he had picked up as a curiosity.