P01981.023 Accession Number: P01981.023

Description

Outdoor portrait of two Australian Prisoners of War (POW) at German POW Camp Stuttgart, Germany. Identified on the left is 3157 Private (Pte) Walter Henry Wood, from Nebo via Mackay, Qld and standing on the right is 142 Pte Hans Henry Petersen (alias Pedersen) from Rockhampton, Qld, both from the 26th Battalion. Pte Wood enlisted at the age of 23 on 23 August 1915 and embarked for overseas on 30 December 1915 aboard HMAT Itonus. He was wounded in the neck and captured at Lagnicourt, France, on 26 March 1917 and held as a POW in Germany. Four months after he was repatriated to England on 21 December 1918, he married Florence May Hubbard at Weymouth. Pte Wood arrived back in Australia on 23 August 1919. Pte Petersen enlisted on 29 March 1915 at the age of 27 and embarked for overseas on 24 May 1915 aboard HMAT Ascanius. He saw service at Gallipoli before going on to serve in France where he was wounded in the buttock on 29 July 1916. After being invalided to England, he rejoined his unit in France a month before being again wounded, this time in the right hip, and captured at Lagnicourt, France on 26 March 1917. He was held as a POW in Germany and died of double pneumonia at Wallerstein Krankenhaus [hospital] in Bavaria. He was buried at Ehringen and then after the war, was re-interred at Niederzwehren Cemetery, Kassel, Germany. One of a series of over 400 photographs sent by Australian POWs in German camps to Miss M. E. Chomley, Secretary, Prisoners Department, Australian-British Red Cross Society, London. Original album housed in AWM Research Centre at RC00864, Album image number 84.

Details

People

• Private Hans Henry Pedersen

Rolls

• Pedersen, Hans Henry

Conflicts

• First World War, 1914-1918

Places

• London
• Germany

Units

• 26th Australian Infantry Battalion

Tags

• Prisoners of war camps