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[Page 2]
[Transcriber's note:
Private Robert Irvine Morris, No. 3577, of the 8/18th Battalion embarked at Sydney on H.M.A.T. Aeneas on 20 December 1915. His diary though sketchy in detail covers his journey from Sydney through to Cairo where he arrived on 17 January 1916. He was stationed at Heliopolis for training, although he suffered scalded feet and was incapacitated for some time. He embarked from Alexandria on 28 March 1916 to go to France disembarking at Marseille on 2 April and gives a brief account of the train journey through to Amiens. He describes his various tasks, the parades, exercises, his fatigue duties, lectures and, the fighting in France where he speaks of a particular bombardment as "Just like hell". He is quite graphic, though brief in his description of the devastation surrounding him during the fighting. In this time he moves through Erquinghem to Strazeele, to near Hazebrouck, to Amiens, Warloy Baillon and Albert. The last place mentioned on 21 August 1916 is Sausage Gully near Harpencourt. Pte. Morris was killed in action on 26 August 1916 aged 18. From his Army records at the National Archives a copy of a letter dated 23 August 1934 to Mrs. Annie Morris (his mother) states, "It is noted from the records that photographs purporting to depict the grave of this soldier in Pozieres British Cemetery were forwarded to you in 1920, and it has since transpired that the cross erected in that cemetery was of a memorial nature only and not marking the actual site of burial. Despite the most searching enquiry and investigation, it is regretted that the Commission has not been successful in recovering the remains of your son; and, in common with those of other members of the Australian Imperial Force who fell in France and have no known graves, his name has now been included for commemoration on the National Memorial to the Missing to be erected at Villers-Bretonneux." The records also show that his father on 18 May 1917 requested his son's effects and the letter forwarding these effects includes the diary.]
Pte. R.I. Morris
A Company
8 Reinforcements
18 Batt.
Casula