Summary

Postcard written by Light Horseman Lieutenant Dudley Townley to Freda Gwyn, dated 15 November 1918. The front features a photograph of a horse named 'Old Bill', who the inscription indicates boarded for war with the Australian Light Horse in 1914. Horses ridden by the Light Horsemen were not allowed to return to Australia under quarantine rules. Old Bill may have been transferred to the Artillery sold or killed after the photo was taken.

The author describes receiving news of the Armistice in this postcard, while he was in the 13th Australian Light Horse Regiment. According to the I ANZAC Corps Mounted Regiment diary (from January 1918 the 13th Australian Light Horse Regiment was part of a unit known as Australian Corps Mounted Troops), on 11 November 1918 the Regiment was moving in the vicinity of Levergies, just north of St Quentin, France. Townley writes on this postcard: 'We were on the road on the top of a very bleak hill when a car came along with a couple of staff officers on board who told us that hostilities had ceased. We did not even know there was a chance of any thing like that - not having heard any news for 3 or 4 days.'

Lieutenant Dudley Arnold Langford Townley served with the 2nd, 5th and 13th Australian Light Horse Regiments during World War I. After the war he married Freda.

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