Among Margaret Medcalf’s treasure-trove of family photographs and memorabilia is a small black and white photograph of her mother Rita.

Miss Medcalf’s father, World War I Digger Ferdinand George Medcalf, carried the image of his then-fiancé with him to the beaches of Gallipoli and on to the mud and trenches of the Western Front while he fought as a member of the WA-raised 11th Battalion.

On the back of the folder Medcalf had written his war service details, and sitting above that is a list of army service ranks from Private up to Captain, all dated.

All have been crossed out except the rank and date at the top of the list: Captain 12/3/16.

It is a record of his rapid promotion through the ranks.

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It is not surprising that he was promoted quickly, for he was clearly a leader and man of courage.

That much is evident in the citation which accompanied his Distinguished Service Order, awarded for action at Pozieres, France.

It says he had showed “conspicuous gallantry when, in leading his company in an attack he put the crew of a hostile machine gun out of action with a bomb and captured the gun”.

“He showed unfailing courage and resource in holding captured ground.

“When wounded in three places and unable to walk, he ordered the stretcher-bearers to take up a seriously wounded man and leave him to crawl to the rear,” the citation says.

Medcalf was an original Anzac, having sailed with the 11th Battalion from Fremantle on October 31, 1914, aboard the transport vessel Medic, which set sail for the war with the Ascianus.

He is in the famous picture on the pyramid. In the grid-referenced pictured he is number 543.

The ships were joined at sea on November 3 by the main convoy carrying Australian and New Zealand troops which had left from Albany.

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The Medic, one of the ships on which the troops sailed to Egypt.





The 11th Battalion, along with the 9th, 10th, and 12th Battalions formed the 3rd Brigade, which was the covering force for the Anzac landing at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, and was the first ashore about 4.30am.

Medcalf was to say after the war that he had been fortunate in being one of the first to land on the beach because he and his section managed to get some cover in the sandhills before heavy firing began.

After a few months he was wounded and evacuated to the island of Mudros, and after the withdrawal of the Anzacs from Gallipoli he went on to fight on the Western Front.

After being wounded again in the course of winning his DSO, Medcalf was evacuated to Britain for treatment and returned to Australia in 1917.

He married Rita in 1917 and settled in Albany, where he set up a practice as a surveyor, work which took him all around the State.

Miss Medcalf was born in 1926.

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