Pte Joseph Kay (Lilydale), 5th Battalion: Is wounded in action, gunshot wound to the chest and is evacuated to hospital in England.
From mid-1916, Australians sent over to Europe to serve on the Western Front were disembarking in England. Most of these were sent to training camps around Salisbury to learn more about the type of trench warfare taking place in France and Belgium before being sent across the Channel. On top of that many of those who were evacuated from the front line for being either sick or wounded, usually ended up in hospitals and then convalescent camps in England and if a soldier was given leave, it was usually to England, or ‘Blighty’ as they called it, that they headed.
As a result, during this period Australians were playing tourist en masse in all parts of the United Kingdom. Visiting the grand sites and the scenes of ‘Old England’ or having the chance to visit family or extended family members.
Gladys Gilbert (nee Stanton): Who grew up in Battersea, London and later became an English war bride of a local soldier – ‘London was more or less headquarters for the Allies and all the troops would come over here. There were New Zealanders, Canadians and Australians of course, and later Americans. They were all welcomed here though, all the Colonials, because they’d come a long way for us. We all knew the Australians liked to have a good time. They were wild boys some of them but they were all welcomed’.