Cover of the Day 15 June 2020 - Major Imlay AIF France

[Peter Harvey]

So many WW1 Field Service post cards are signed 'Fred, Bert, George' etc without the surname, so hard to work out who sent them home. Here is a better example from a significant Australian Officer.

July 1916 card signed A. P. Imlay Major, cancelled with the date stamp Field Post Office TW4 - JY 1916 used by the Australian 4th Division in France. (Temporary Major) Captain Alexander Peter Imlay, DSO and Bar, came from Prospect, South Australia. He enlisted in the AIF on 23 September 1914, as a second lieutenant with the 16th Battalion, and embarked from Melbourne, Vic, aboard HMAT Ceramic on 22 December 1914. He served with the 47th Battalion at Gallipoli and the Western Front and was wounded twice.

He was mentioned in despatches twice and awarded the Legion of Honour on 26 April 1917, and the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) on 5 March 1917 and a bar to the DSO on 7 December 1917. He returned to Australia on 21 March 1919 aboard HMAT Dongala.

Not content with that military service. In 1921 Major Imlay was commissioned in the British Army, joining the Gordon Highlanders. He retired in the 1930's and rejoined on the outbreak of WW2 serving in Scotland.