Exhibition Highlights
The Australian Army Infantry Museum (AAIM) is the custodian of Infantry Corps history and its customs and traditions. The Museum's collection ranges from the Australia's pre federation state colonial armies and their first deployments overseas in the nineteenth century through to today’s twenty first century diggers.
The Menin Gate Memorial in Belgium records the names of 54 900 British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Ypres campaigns during the Great War and whose bodies remain missing with no known place of burial, including over 6000 Australians.
Private Alan James Mather, killed in action in June 1917 at the Battle of Messines, was one of them. The battle fought in West Flanders from 7-14 June 1917 began with the detonation of 19 mines before the infantry assault. The shock waves from the mines were reportedly felt as far away as London.
On 6 August 2008 a multinational archaeological team investigating World War I German trenches and defences close to a mine crater near Ploegsteert in Belgium, discovered the remains of Private Mather as he fell, clutching his rifle and a Prussian infantryman's spiked helmet. His personal effects revealed much about his nationality and battalion, with DNA testing confirmed his identity.