Studio portrait of 898 Private (Pte) Abel Porter, 11th Battalion. Pte Porter was born in Ireland ...

Studio portrait of 898 Private (Pte) Abel Porter, 11th Battalion. Pte Porter was born in Ireland and emmigrated to Australia with his family aged 5 years. A farmer of Highbury, WA, he enlisted at Narrogin on 7 September 1914 and sailed from Fremantle with H Company on 2 November 1914 aboard HMAT Ascanius. Whilst serving in the Gallipoli campaign he was wounded and evacuated to England for medcial treatment, later rejoining his regiment in France in early 1916. Pte Porter was killed in action during the advance at Contalmaison, on the Pozieres Front, on 25 July 1916, aged 35. 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.