Preview

This website has a digital presentation of the 997 profiles from the Not Just a Name book. You can practice using this site by searching for some of the stories and puzzles below.

Find love and sadness. Myrtle Edwards. Her letters to her mother reveal her excitement serving in a military hospital, her yearning for home and family at Christmas, her impish humour, her love for her soldier  ‘Jock’ and the grief, shared by women across the world, when the fateful message arrives that he is dead. The joy is gone from her letters and all she wants now is to come home.

Find tragedy. The tragedy of the Curlewis Brothers. only seven years separated the eldest from the youngest; George, Gordon, Selwyn and Arthur. All four enlisted between September and October 1914 and all four landed at Gallipoli about the same time. Anyone who saw the movie, Saving Private Ryan, will know the tears shed in the Curlewis household as four telegrams arrived one after another, three dead and one wounded. Three were hit on 2nd May 1915 and two died. two were hit in August and one died. Who survived?

Find fate. Some people are fated to die. When Eric and Norman Munro were killed in France, the surviving brother was taken from the front line to spend the remainder of the war safe so one son would return to his family. He never went home. Why, and what was his name?

Find luck. Fate moves in many directions. As a boy, Leonard Glaskin was a talented musician and selected to join the first Western Australian boys’ band to tour England. At the tour’s end they had the choice of a tour of China or a free trip to New York on the grandest new passenger liner in the world. It was 1912. What was the liner and what was his choice?

Find a Mayor. Three men were at different times the Mayor of Cottesloe. Gadsdon, Harvey and Wisdom were Mayors of Cottesloe, and all served in WW1. Who had the highest rank and who was knighted?

Find a Member of Parliament. Evan Wisdom, who became rich in the gold boom and Reginald Burcham were Members of Parliament when they enlisted and both were rewarded for bravery. Burcham was a railway worker in his early life and served in France with a Military Railway Unit. Who was the Member for Fremantle?

Find a Boy Scout. Harrie Holmes was sixteen when he enlisted to serve with the 28th Battalion and Ernest Waterhouse was only fifteen when assigned to 11th Battalion. They were both Boy Scouts and only one came home.