The Australian War Memorial Collection. Test site
Australian Army fur-felt slouch hat in a flattened condition, with some tearing. There is dried battlefield mud attached to all external surfaces.
Hat worn by an unknown Australian soldiers from 5 Division (probably 15 Infantry Brigade) engaged and killed in the attack on the Sugarloaf Salient near Fromelles, on 19/20 July 1916. This attack, which failed to achieve any of its objectives, cost the Australians more than 5,500 casualties in 24 hours. Few of the dead or wounded could be recovered from the battlefield, which remained part of No-Man's Land until the end of the war.
Official war photographer and member of the Australian War Records Section (AWRS), Warrant Officer Alexander William Winter Casserly collected this hat when he visited the site on 11 November 1918. It is part of a collection of items he gathered on that day - another two felt hats, a pannikin, an entrenching tool and the butt off a rifle, all part of the debris and corpses which had littered no-man's land for two and a half years. Casserly handed his finds over to the AWRS on 25 November 1918.
Casserly, a photographer in civilian life, was born and resided in Parramatta. He enlisted in the AIF on 4 May 1917, a month before his 25th birthday. Assigned the service number 1881 he was posted to the reinforcements for 3 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps (AFC). He embarked from Melbourne aboard the transport 'Themistocles' on 4 August 1917 and arrived at Glasgow, Scotland on 2 October. He trained at the AFC Depot at Halton Camp, Wendover and was transferred to France on 4 April 1918, via No 1 Aircraft Depot, to 3 Squadron, AFC, arriving on 10 April.
In later August 1918 Casserly was transferred to No 3 Photographic Subsection, AWRS as an Official Photographer. He was temporarily promoted to Warrant Officer Class 1 for this purpose. After the war's end he was attached to 1st Division Headquarters as Official Photographer, working with them until 28 February 1919, when he reverted to the rank of Staff Sergeant. He was discharged in England on 28 April 1919.
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