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Telegram reporting Private A. E. J. Duncan officially missing
Title : Telegram reporting Private A. E. J. Duncan officially missing Telegram reporting Private A. E. J. Duncan officially missing
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Creator : Pendlebury, Major
Source : Duncan family, PRG 544/15
Date of creation : 1918
Format : Manuscript
Contributor : State Library of South Australia
Catalogue record
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Copyright : This item is reproduced courtesy of Mr Allen McDonald. It may be printed or saved for research or study. Use for any other purpose requires written permission from Mr Allen McDonald and the State Library of South Australia. To request approval, complete the Permission to publish form.
Description :

A telegram from Major Pendlebury reporting that Private A. E. J. Duncan, 47th Battalion, was officially reported missing on 5 April 1918.

Private Alfred Duncan was wounded during fighting at Dernancourt on 5 April 1918, and subsequently died. The battle at Dernancourt was part of the March 1918 offensive with Australian troops commanded to hold the vital areas of Dernancourt and Villers-Bretonneux from German capture.


His mother later received a letter dated 26 December 1918 from the then South Australian Premier A H Peake, expressing condolences on his death. She would subsequently in April of the next year receive information from the Australian Red Cross advising that her son Alfred had been wounded in action, with shell wounds to his arms, legs and abdomen.

View Duncan's AIF service record [National Archives of Australia]

Subjects
Coverage year : 1918
Period : 1914-1918
Further reading :

Carlyon, Les. The great war, Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2006

Gammage, Bill. The broken years: Australian soldiers in the Great War, Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin Books, 1990

Kent, David. From trench and troopship: the experience of the Australian Imperial Force, 1914-1919, Alexandria, N.S.W.: Hale & Iremonger, 1999

Macdougall, Anthony. Australians at war: a pictorial history, Nobel Park, Vic.: Five Mile Press, 2002

Internet links :

1918 Australians in France [previous exhibition from Australian War Memorial]

AIF Database: Australian Anzacs in the Great War 1914-1918 [Australian Defence Force Academy]

Anzac Day Commemoration Committee (Queensland) See: History: World War 1

Australians at War [Department of Veterans' Affairs]

Australian War Memorial See: Australians at War: Australian Military History Overview: First World War 1914-1918

Australian Army History Unit [Department of Defence]: See: History in focus [several sections about World War One]

Official history of Australia in the war of 1914-1918 [Australian War Memorial]

RSL Virtual War Memorial


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