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Other facts to be covered are a soldier’s medical history, his service
history, his fate, and government correspondence.
If you log in as a guest you can get free access to the information simply
by knowing the soldier’s surname and the dates of the conflict.
The dates of conflict for World War 1 should be 1914-1919 as Australia’s
commitment to war commenced in August 1914 and the troops did not
return to Australia until 1919.
Many soldiers, in fact, did not return until late 1919. Many people
assume, as I did, that the war concluded in 1918 and are unaware that the
suffering of isolation from loved ones continued into 1919.
If you are lucky a soldier’s complete military record will be available to
all researchers. As time goes on more resources can be added to a
soldier’s information.
If we look for the name of an ancestor say “Mondy” as an example we
will only find two who participated in World War 1, Charles and John.
Charles, known as “Chas” went missing on the 19th or 20th July, in 1916.
John, Charles’ brother only finds out about his death when he received a
message from home, he was quoted in the Red Cross report “ my people
know he is dead. They wrote to me and sent an In Memoriam cutting from
a newspaper.”
Fighting at the front must have been a disorganized and “shambolic”
struggle, with a soldier’s world simply being his sector of the Front.
If we look at the Red Cross Wounded and Missing reports we see that this
organization’s main purpose was to locate soldiers’ final resting places or
their imprisonment. The Mondy Family had obviously made enquiries
through Charles’ Company Captain Cookson who then undertook to
search amongst Charles’ fellow soldiers.
By the war’s end there were 32,000 soldiers on Red Cross files that gives
us a good opportunity of finding out the fate of Charles Mondy (2636)
54th Battalion.
Chas Mondy lies somewhere unburied in “No Mans’ Land”. The attack
during the Battle of Fromelles- 19th/20th July,1916 was not a success so
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