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First battle was German heritage

George Hettich should have been at the forefront when applications to join the Diggers fighting in the trenches of World War I were assessed.

He was keen to do what he saw as his duty and he was ready to go at short notice.

But in the eyes of the Australian Imperial Force decision-makers there was one major problem.

His father, also George, had been born in Germany.

It mattered not that George Sr had married Mary, an Englishwoman, or that he had lived in WA for 32 years, or that George Jr was born in Fremantle and his wife Ivy had been born in England.

The decision recorded in the March 1916 report to the military headquarters, in Francis Street, Perth, was blunt and clear about George Jr's application to sign up.

"Not desirable to accept his services," it read.

But George Jr did not give up and a year later he wrote to the authorities again to offer his services.

It was written under the letterhead of G. Wood, Son & Co, Merchants and Wholesale Grocers.

The impassioned letter was dated February 12, 1917.

Hettich wrote that he had noticed "by your appeal through our daily papers for the urgent necessity for recruits for reinforcements for our AIF".

He said the soldiers were "fighting our battles in distant lands", which he said was "the duty of every eligible man".

"Therefore I offer to you my services to the best of my ability in becoming an AIF soldier, if you can see your way clear to have me enlisted."

Hettich wrote that his father's birthplace "should not prevent me from doing my duty to our God, our King and our country".

"I am already prepared if I am selected to go into camp at two weeks notice," he wrote.

This time Hettich won the argument.

And so on June 29, 1917 George Thomas Hettich, aged 30, reinforcement for the 11th Battalion, was aboard the transport vessel Borda as it sailed from Fremantle.

His grandson John Solosy, of Willetton, said Hettich did not see much action for several months after contracting severe tonsillitis and then injuring an ankle.

In August 1918 Hettich was at Villers-Brettoneux, France, and was shot in the face.

The bullet passed through his cheeks, knocking out lower teeth on one side of his jaw and upper teeth on the other side.

After treatment he returned to the front and was then wounded again, this time hit by machinegun fire in a shoulder and a leg.

He was in hospital in England when the war ended in November 1918 and was able to return home in December.

Mr Solosy said Hettich worked as a clerk for Fremantle council after the war.

He was also a familiar figure at Fremantle Oval where he worked as a ticket collector for South Fremantle Football Club games.

He moved to Shenton Park in the 1930s and served in World War II as a staff sergeant based at Karrakatta.

Hettich had two sons, Len and Jack, who both served in WWII, and a daughter, Lois, Mr Solosy's mother.

Mr Solosy's father Bob also served in WWII.

George Thomas Hettich died in 1960, aged 73.