ENLISTS AT 14

Grey River Argus, 4 December 1943, Page 3

ENLISTS AT 14

AUSTRALIAN DISCHARGED AFTER SERVICE IN NEW GUINEA. (Rec. 5.5.) ~SYDNEY, Dec. 3. Australia’s youngest returned soldier has been discharged from the A.I.'F after nineteen months’ service. He is just sixteen. His name is William Francis Gray, and he enlisted when he wa s only fourteen years ana four months old. With his parents consent, he gave the wrong age to the Army. He spent nine months fighting on the Owen Stanley Range as a member of a mountain battery, where he celebrated his fifteen birthday. He was discharged when. the Army discovered his age, thiough his father’s pension papers. His fatherhad enlisted in the first A.I.F. when he was sixteen, and was wounded m France. Gray weighs eleven stone eight lbs, and when at high school he won a boxing championship. Recently he won a buck-jumping contest. ■ _