Red Cross Information Bureau – April 1916

19 April, 1916
Mr W.H. Alderson,
King Street
Solomontown
Dear Sir,
We are in receipt of further detailed reports from the commissioners in Egypt relative to your son…, copies of which we include for your information. At the same time we deem it as well to warn you that these statements by other soldiers must be received with a good deal of caution, even although they are carefully tested…
Yours faithfully…
PS We might mentioned that although we wrote your niece asking her to call on us and give us the information relative to your son contained in her husband’s letter, she has not yet done so.
ENCLOSURE

(3 witness statements – only two are transcribed here)
Witness says that Aldison was wounded on the right side of the waist by a bomb on the night of 2nd May at Dead Man’s Ridge and witness helped him down to the doctor. He seemed to be badly wounded and when the doctor saw him he made an exclamation as if there was not much hope. Witness left him there and never saw him again. He was in the same section as witness and came from Port Pirie…

Witness says he saw Alderson wounded at Dead Man’s Ridge on the night of 2nd May, 1915, but thinks it was by a rifle bullet, and could not say where. He was about 10 yards away from him. He did not see him carried away…

April 25 1916
Dear Sir,
I am in receipt of your of the 19th Inst giving further reports from your commissioners in Egypt… The reports are not every promising, and I am quite prepared to receive them with every caution until confirmed or otherwise; also I tender my sincere thanks to your society for the information obtained.
Have had no further news from the Military Department.
With regard to my neice, she received a letter from her husband a few days after the first one, in which he said he had made a mistake, as the person he thought was Lance… proved to be someone else, so she did not call…
Again, thanking you
Yours faithfully, WH Alderson

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