Studio portrait of Private (Pte) Roy Wallace Moffatt, a 20 year old blacksmith's assistant from ...

Studio portrait of Private (Pte) Roy Wallace Moffatt, a 20 year old blacksmith's assistant from Sydney, who enlisted for service with the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF) in New Guinea, at the beginning of the First World War, on 11 August 1914. He was assigned to H Company (Tropical Unit) 1st Battalion, with the service number 863, and sailed for New Guinea aboard the troopship HMAT Berrima. After six months service in Rabaul and Bougainville Moffatt returned to Sydney and was discharged in January 1915. He re-enlisted for service, in the AIF, on 9 February 1915 and was assigned to B Company, 17th Battalion, with the service number 626. The battalion left Sydney on 12 May 1915 aboard HMAT Themistocles. Moffatt served on Gallipoli before transferring to France in 1916. He was promoted to lance corporal in November 1916 and to corporal in January 1917. On 28 February 1917 Moffatt received a gunshot wound to the thigh. After hospital treatment in England and further training he rejoined his battalion at the beginning of August 1917. He was promoted to temporary sergeant on 25 September. Moffatt was awarded the Military Medal for an action which took place on 9 October 1917, during the Third Battle of Ypres. He was promoted to company quartermaster sergeant in June 1918. Moffatt rejoined 17 Battalion on 8 September 1918, in time for the final operations on the Hindenberg Line. He received a gunshot wound to the knee on 3 October, the battalion's last day of action in the war, and subsequently had his right leg amputated at the thigh. After hospitalisation in France and England Moffatt returned to Australia on 16 March 1919.