Australian Victoria Cross - Sold.

The Victoria Cross awarded to Capt Alfred John Shout of the Australian Infantry sold for £491,000 in a sale in Sydney.



Capt Shout, born in New Zealand in 1881,fought in The Boer War and was Austrialia's most decorated soldier in the Gallipoli Campaign, died three days after an assult on Turkish Trenches at The Battle of Lone Pine in 1915.


THE REAL ANZACS


There are plenty of slouch-hatted soldiers in town,
Doughty and debonair, stalwart and brown;
Some are from Weymouth or Salisbury plain,
Others have 'pushed' in the western campaign;

Call them 'overseas soldiers' or 'down under men'
Declare that each is as daring as ten;
Call them cornstalks or fern leaves all out for a fight,
But don't call them ANZACS, for that isn't right.

The ANZACS, their ranks are scanty but all told,
Have a separate record illuminated in gold;
Their blood on Gallipoli's ridges they poured,
Their souls with the scars of that struggle are scored,

Not many are left, and not many are sound,
And thousands lie buried in Turkish ground,
These are the ANZACS; the others may claim,
Their zeal and their spirit, but never their name.


by an unknown Aussie soldier.




My story about Sergent Havildar Singh is another fine example of the heroes of The First World War.