LANCE CORPORAL HAROLD GILKES
AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY
24TH JUNE 1918 AGE 22
BURIED: LA KREULE MILITARY CEMETERY, HAZEBROUCK, FRANCE
The Australian Red Cross Society Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau would make extensive enquiries when it needed to find out exactly what had happened to a casualty. Their records, now digitised, reveal that Private Gilkes "was about 19, fair, medium height, and fresh complexion. A fine little soldier. His name was Harry" (Lieutenant Hindmarsh). Information pieced together from other witnesses describe what happened: they were holding an advanced position and had been bothered by a sniper, at about mid-day Gilkes crawled out into the long grass to try and get him. When he didn't return his mates went out to look for him and found him shot through the head, "the bullet entered the top of his head, coming out at the back above his neck", "I helped carry him from the front line to the support line where they placed him on a stretcher", "he was working for leave to go to England to meet his father. He expected to get married".