Walter William Alexander Gray

Service number: 1044, 86226

Rank: Bugler/Private

Unit: 2nd Battalion

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Source: National Archives of Australia

Walter Gray was born on 9 January 1898 at Burwood. He was a draughtsman. He enlisted on 30 September 1914 giving as his next of kin his mother Sarah Gray of Alleyn, Osborne Road, Manly.

He embarked on 18 October 1914, and served at Gallipoli. He was wounded in action in France on 22 July 1916, and gassed on 18 August 1918.

He was invalided home and discharged on 3 February 1919. He then re-enlisted on 18 August 1919, for what was termed ‘special service’. It is not clear what the special service entailed, but it may have been as one of the guards of 500 German POWs who were being repatriated on the Rio Negro. He embarked on the Rio Negro on 19 August 1919, for London, returning to Australia on the Bordaon 9 December 1919; he was then discharged on 9 April 1920.

Part of a letter home he wrote in 1915 is quoted in Sunday Times 21 November 1915, p7, complaining about loafers who shirk enlisting.His father Walter, an architect, also enlisted.