The Australian War Memorial has helped two families unravel a 95-year-old mystery and revealed an unexpected link between them.
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On this Remembrance Day descendants of the Lawrence family can marvel over a letter in the War Memorial collection.
Gunner Albert Kittle wrote it in 1918 asking the Red Cross about a mate, Private Walter Leslie Plummer, after hearing he had been killed.
The Red Cross pieced together some of the picture, but recently the War Memorial and historians discovered the two soldiers were first cousins.
The Red Cross had been able to track down several men who had seen Private Plummer killed at Ypres on October 6, 1917. A witness had said: ''[He] was carried back by 2nd Battalion stretcher-bearer who happened to be a personal friend of his. Was buried at their dressing station, which is situated on Anzac Ridge. Cannot say if the grave was registered.''
Private Plummer's great-nephew Bob Piper, of Canberra, said his grandmother and great-grandmother were never told of the letter to the Red Cross. ''In fact my grandmother had expressed grief at the loss of her favourite elder brother right up to her death in 1971.
''They believed Walter, who was a superb marksman, had been placed out in front of the other troops as a sniper and had been the target of enemy artillery to eke him out,'' Mr Piper said. He said Private Plummer's grave and those of many others from 3rd battalion who were killed have never been found.
Before the war Private Plummer was a barber at Wagga Wagga.
Mr Kittle survived the war and lived in Queensland. The War Memorial and Queensland historians later located his daughter, Ethel Ferguson, at Shepparton, Victoria.
''She and the family were overjoyed to receive a copy of the letter written by their father and grandfather, some 95 years ago,'' Mr Piper said.
A closer study of Mr Kittle's war records revealed his mother's maiden name was Amelia Lawrence, of Shepparton. She was a sister of Private Plummer's mother, Isabel Lawrence, who also lived at Shepparton.
''Both families had lost touch shortly after World War I,'' Mr Piper said, nut they were ''now reunited after a series of remarkable coincidences, helped by caring and dedicated people.''