Identity Disc : Sergeant F G Jurd, 5 Pioneer Battalion, AIF

Aluminium identity disc of Sergeant (later Warrant Officer Class II) Frederick George Jurd, 5 Pioneer Battalion, AIF. The disc is hand inscribed on each side with the same information, once in small capitals, and once in a cursive script. The text in both cases reads: '2332 Sgt. F. Jurd B. Coy. 5 Div. Pioneers A.I.F. C. of. E'

Frederick George Jurd was born in London in 1870, and enlisted in the Royal Marines at the age of 19. He emigrated to Australia some time after 1910. On 15 August 1914, aged 43, Jurd enlisted in the naval contingent of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force as an Able Seaman serving with it until January 1915. In May 1915, he enlisted as a private in 2 Infantry Battalion AIF. He joined the Battalion on Gallipoli and served with it until the evacuation. In 1916, he was posted to 5 Pioneer Battalion, and served with it for the remainder of the war, rising to the rank of warrant officer. Jurd was decorated three times in 1918, receiving the Distinguished Conduct Medal, the Military Medal and the Belgian Croix de Guerre. He returned to Australia in February 1919, and was discharged medically unfit due to a gun shot wound to his right leg, suffered at Bellicourt. Frederick Jurd died in Sydney in 1939.