Four brothers who volunteered for the unknown
When World War I came to a close, the Fathers brothers had well and truly done their bit.
Four sons of Geraldton couple George and Ada Fathers volunteered to serve their country.
The first to join the war was Walter, who signed up in September 1914, aged 20, just weeks after the outbreak of hostilities.
Walter sailed from Fremantle into the unknown on October 31, aboard the Ascanius as a member of the 11th Battalion.
The battalion disembarked in Egypt and 703 men, including Walter, gathered on January 10, 1915, on Cheops Pyramid for the now famous photograph.
The 11th Battalion was among the first ashore at Gallipoli.
Ernest George Fathers
Walter survived the campaign, although he became ill in the terrible conditions, and then fought on when the battalion moved to the Western Front.
He was seriously wounded in action in August 1918 and after recovering, finally headed home in mid-1919 after more than four years away.
Walter later moved to Adelaide where he worked as a clerk and died at the age of 86 in 1980. His brother Eugene was just 18 when he enlisted. He sailed for the war in February 1915, assigned to the 16th Battalion, and was also sent to Gallipoli.
He was wounded in December, not long before the Anzacs withdrew, when he was hit in the left arm and forehead by shrapnel.
Eugene later joined the flying corps and returned to Australia in 1919. But his war story was not over. Eugene joined up again in World War II and was taken prisoner by the Japanese at the fall of Singapore. He was sent to a work camp in Korea and survived.
He died at the age of 99 in 1995.
Walter Lamont Fathers, 11th Battalion
The third brother to go to war, Ernest, enlisted at the age of 18 and sailed for the war in July 1916, also to reinforce the 16th Battalion. He was captured by the Germans in northern France in April 1917 and sent to a prisoner of war camp at Limberg, Germany, before being repatriated to London in December 1918.
He returned to Australia in March 1919. His niece, Dawn Whitehurst, of Lathlain, said that during his time as a PoW Ernest received a Red Cross parcel sent to help the war effort rather than to anyone in particular. The parcel was from WA and it contained a pair of knitted socks.
Incredibly they had been sent by his teenage brother, Lloyd.
Eugene Alfred Fathers
Ernest also moved to South Australia, where he died at the age of 82 in 1980.
The fourth Fathers brother to enlist was Albert, who signed on in August 1918, aged 19.
Mrs Whitehurst said that after his training he was on the wharf waiting to sail for the war when word came through hostilities had ended, and then "sat down and cried his heart out because he couldn't go overseas, too".
He died in 1948 at the age of 49.
Malcolm Quekett
