Identity disc made from a coin : Captain J G F Luther, Australian Army Medical Corps, 15 Battalion, AIF

Places
Accession Number REL42401
Collection type Heraldry
Object type Heraldry
Physical description Silver
Maker Unknown
Place made Egypt
Date made c 1914-1915
Conflict First World War, 1914-1918
Description

Egyptian 10 Qirsh coin. The design on the reverse has been ground away and engraved as an identity disc reading: 'CAPT. G.F. LUTHER A.M.C. A.I.F. C.E.' around the edge, and '15th Btn 4th Bgde.' in the centre. Fittings for a brooch pin (pin now missing) have been brazed to the reverse, possibly at a later date in Australia.

History / Summary

Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1870, John Fitzmaurice Guy Luther trained as a doctor and emigrated to Queensland in 1895, where he worked mainly in the Maryborough district. He served in the militia in the Australian Army Medical Corps from 1902 until he enlisted in the AIF at Bundaberg on 6 October 1914, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War.

Luther was appointed Regimental Medical Officer to the 15th Battalion and sailed from Melbourne with his unit on 22 December 1914, aboard HMAT A40 Ceramic. After training in Egypt the battalion landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. On 25 August, near Hill 60, Luther was shot in the head by a Turkish sniper and died soon afterwards. The 'Brisbane Courier' reported: 'He had been attending to several casualties caused by snipers firing on a certain point in the communication line. He was wearing around his neck a large red bandana. An officer and some men came to Luther's dressing station on their way up to the front line. To show them the dangerous sector in the communication line Luther accompanied them, and at the spot where so many casualties had occurred, a sniper's bullet struck him in the head'.

Luther's stretcher bearers carried him down to the 4th Field Ambulance near the beach. Although he was attended by four of his fellow doctors he did not regain consciousness and died about an hour later. Known to be buried in No. 2 Out Post Cemetery at Anzac, Luther's body could not be located for a more formal burial immediately after the war. Instead, headstones for him, and other men known to have been buried there are placed around the cemetery's perimeter.

This unofficial identity disc was found in No 2 Out Post Cemetery by Captain C V Bigg-Wither, from the New Zealand War Graves Unit, in late 1918 or 1919. He could not link it to a corresponding body and forwarded it to Australian Headquarters in Egypt. It was subsequently sent to Luther's widow, Ida.