Souvenir ring : Sergeant A J Rose, 3 Divisional Train, AIF

Aluminium finger ring with a brass eagle on the front face. The image of the eagle is worn but it appears to be a variation of the Great Seal of the United States of America. The eagle has a shield in front of its chest, the bottom half of which has verticle lines. Its wings are outstretched and it clasps arrows in one talon. The item held in the eagle's other are too worn to decifer. It may originally have been an olive branch.

Souvenir ring associated with the service of 567 Sergeant Alfred James Rose, who enlisted on 19 August 1914. He embarked from Adelaide, South Australia with 2 Divisional Train aboard HMAT Hymettus. Rose took part in the Gallipoli campaign, but on 10 August 1915 he was admitted to hospital in Alexandria, Egypt, with fever. He was later sent to Mudros for three weeks, before embarking for England on 18 September 1915. He served in England, until November 1916, when he proceeded to France. On 15 September 1916 he was transferred to 3 Divisional Train.

Rose was awarded the Military Medal for actions at Messines on the night of 16/17 July 1917. On 30 May 1918 he was admitted to hospital with trench fever. He was admitted for it again on 12 June. On 23 September 1918 he embarked for Australia, undertaking submarine guard duty on his transport.

This ring bears an image of the American eagle and may have been made after the American entry into the war in 1917. A cottage industry developed in the trenches during the war, making souvenir aluminium rings. The rings were made from melted down fuses from German shells, or from melted down aluminium mess kits and canteens. Collecting the fuses from unexploded ‘duds’ could often be dangerous and many men were wounded attempting to salvage this material. The aluminium would be melted, then roughly cast and filed down, before being either engraved, or having a small item, such as the front of a button, attached to the front face.