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Sgt Alfred George Purdon

Jacob Watt is a student at Bayview Secondary College. Jacob's soldier is Sergeant Alfred George Purdon who was born 1st of January 1896, in Brighton, Tasmania to farmers, Alfred Purdon and Alice Mollineaux.

At the age of 19, Alfred enlisted into the Australian Imperial Force. He departed from Tasmania on 24 May 1915. He arrived in Queensland with the rest of the 26th Infantry Battalion, and left Australia in June. After training in Egypt, the 26th Battalion landed in Gallipoli on 12 September 1915.

Sgt Purdon served in Gallipoli, Egypt, and later France.

Wounded in early July 1916, he rejoined his Battalion and was taken as a prisoner of war after a failed attack on OG2 (near Pozières). Over the next three years, Sgt Purdon was held at camps in Cambria, Westphalia and eventually Holland. Conditions were harsh and the guards cruel. Alfred described himself as a 'football of fate'.

He was repatriated to Australia in March 1919 and died in 1981 aged 85.

Read Private Alfred George Purdon's story.

Read Jacob Watt's winning entry for the Frank MacDonald Memorial Prize.