Portrait of 5810 Private (Pte) Leonard Stanley Dean, 17th Battalion. Born in Edmonton, England, ...

Portrait of 5810 Private (Pte) Leonard Stanley Dean, 17th Battalion. Born in Edmonton, England, he emigrated to Australia with his family when he was eight years old. A labourer of Bankstown, NSW, he enlisted on 13 June 1916 and sailed from Sydney on HMAT Ceramic with the 16th Reinforcements on 7 October 1916. He was killed in action on 3 May 1917, aged 28, at Bullecourt, France, and is commemorated on panel 82 of the Villers Bretonneux Memorial, France. This photograph is from an Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau file. The Bureau, which commenced operation in October 1915, sought to identify, investigate and respond to enquiries made regarding the fate of Australian personnel. It investigated the majority of personnel posted as wounded and missing on official Army lists, as well as written enquiries from concerned relatives and friends. Approximately 32,000 individual case files were opened for Australian personnel who were reported as wounded or missing during the First World War. The Bureau employed searchers to operate both at the front and in Britain. They searched official lists of wounded and missing, interviewed comrades of missing soldiers in hospitals and wrote to men on active service. Altogether 400,000 responses were sent back to those who placed enquiries with the Bureau.