Next of kin plaque : Second Lieutenant Archibald Henry Searle, 67 (Australian) Squadron, Royal Flying Corps

Bronze next of kin plaque, showing on the obverse, Britannia holding a laurel wreath, the British lion, dolphins, a spray of oak leaves and the words 'HE DIED FOR FREEDOM AND HONOUR' around the edge. Beneath the main figures, the British lion defeats the German eagle. The initials 'ECP', for the designer Edward Carter Preston appear above the lion's right forepaw. A raised rectangle above the lion's head bears the name 'ARCHIBALD HENRY SEARLE'.

Archibald Henry Searle was born in Bendigo, Victoria in 1888. He was working as a clerk when he enlisted in the AIF on 11 August 1915. He was allocated to the Australian Army Pay Corps with the rank of sergeant and service number 88. Searle embarked from Melbourne aboard HMAT Anchises on 26 August.

In Egypt Searle was promoted to temporary staff sergeant on 1 September 1916 while serving with 1 Army Pay Corps. On 29 January 1917 he was detached for a course at the Imperial School of Instruction, Cairo. In April he was sent to No. 3 School of Military Aeronautics, attached to 58 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps to train as a pilot. After completing his course and attending the Aerial School of Gunnery Searle qualified as a pilot on 31 May and was awarded his wings a week later. Posted a second lieutenant to the 5th Wing, 67 (Australian) Squadron, Royal Flying Corps (later re-titled 1 Squadron Australian Flying Corps in January 1918), he was officially taken on strength on 12 June. Searle had only served with the squadron for a month before he was reported missing, believed killed, on 13 July.

On 14 July 1917 Oberleutnant Gerhard Felmy, serving with Fliegerabteilung 300, flying an Albatros D.III fighter, dropped a message on the Aerodrome at Deir-el-Belah. The message stated that biplane 7133, flown by Searle, had been shot down the previous day and that both officers in the aircraft were dead. Searle was said to have been shot in the head, the wing of the biplane had broken and the plane crashed to the ground, killing the other occupant, Lieutenant Gerald Lewis Paget. The two men had been buried with full military honours.

A report given by Major Richard Williams, Officer Commanding, 67 (Aust) Sqn RFC, to a board of enquiry on 6 September 1917 stated that 'On 13 July 1917 this Officer (Searle) left the Aerodrome at Deir-el-Balah on a reconnaissance of Beersheba and Irgeig, flying a B.E.2 E. with a passenger. Lieutenant G. L. Paget, 17th Northumberland Fusiliers and accompanied by another B.E.2E. When in the vicinity of Bir-Ifteis, Palestine, the machine flown by 2nd/Lieutenant Searle was attacked by a hostile machine, the port side wing was seen to fold up and the machine crashed to the ground, and was surrounded by Turkish Cavalry.' The hostile machine is believed to have been a Rumpler C.I flown by Leutnant Schmarjie and Leutnant Fritzsche of Fliegerabteilung 300.

Searle's body was not recovered after the war and his burial site is unknown. His name is commemorated on Panel 60 of the Jerusalem Memorial, Jerusalem War Cemetery, Israel.

This commemorative plaque was sent to his father, William Cecil Searle, in December 1922.