Oldest WWI digger dies
“Mr Casserly, like many of his generation, lied about his age when he enlisted in 1917 claiming to be 21, then used what he calls “ocean post” – a message in a bottle – to tell his mother all about it.
The bottle he dropped into the sea from his troop ship off Fremantle eventually washed ashore more than 700km away at Esperance, where a woman who found it posted it to his mum in Perth.
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But like virtually all old Diggers he loathes fighting, and once his own war had ended he did not take part in an Anzac Day march until 2004.
“There’s 90,000 Australians underground,” he said at the time.
“Now you can’t tell me there is anything good about war – you think that’s fair enough?”” (Age)