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[Roy Frederick Arnold (number 312 and 805) is an educated person based on his writing. His army records shows he was a Hatter, 20 years old when he enlisted in August 1914 and lived in Bega NSW. He served throughout the war, was wounded in France in August 1916, awarded the Military Medal on 17 October 1918, ended the war as a Sergeant and arrived back in Sydney on 17 Feb 1919.. This letter is as he says, a summary of his of his first year in the army having lost the diary that he had kept. It is well written and provides and interesting summary of the trip over to Gallipoli and his brief time there before being evacuated. The citation for the MM reads as follows: "This N.C.O. did very gallant and useful work during the advance and consolidation of the captured position on 19/5/18 at Morlancourt. On reaching the objective he at once pushed forward with a captured machine gun to enfilade a party of the enemy who were still giving trouble from pot-holes in the rear and thus causing them to retire". ]
On Service
Dear Mum
You asked me to send home my diary for last year but alas I have lost it. I am just sending you this little account of what I remember of my doings last year.
However a few [Indecipherable] I will endeavour to give you an account of what has happened to me since I left Sydney 12 months ago. I will have to rely on memory for the fact as I have lost the case of the diary kept last year.
As you know we left Sydney on June 25th and as soon as we cleared the Heads we encountered a stiff head wind which stayed with us till we were out of Australian waters. Two days after leaving Sydney we stopped outside Port Philip to put ashore some of the [Indecipherable] Pay Corps. We stopped for a half hour only and then proceeded on our way. We passed Albany and Cape Leeuwin a week after we left Sydney and it was [Indecipherable] Australia.
During this week the Ceramic had been burying her nose into the water and the spray used to wash all over her decks it meant a certain drenching if you ventured out from the cover of the companion way. One our way across the Australian Bight we saw and albatross which followed the ship nearly all day but the greatest excitement was caused by a whale which we could see blowing in the distance.
On our way through the Indian Ocean we saw several. The first one [Indecipherable]. All the men would hang over the sides watching porpoises, dolphins and other fish which no one knew disporting themselves round the boat. We also passed several sharks which the men wanted to shoot but were not allowed to do by the officers. A hammer headed shark caused a great deal of argument which was finally decided by one of the ship's crew.
Near the African coast we passed swarms of small