BOYS, YE FOUGHT
AS HEROES FIGHT
AND DIED AS MEN

PRIVATE ARTHUR JEFFERSON LANE

AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY

25TH APRIL 1918 AGE 21

BURIED: AUBIGNY BRITISH CEMETERY, FRANCE


Arthur Jefferson Lane was killed on 25 April 1918; his twenty-year-old brother, William Gladstone Lane, was killed two days later on the 27th. William's body was never found so he has no grave. His name is commemorated on the memorial to the missing at Villers-Bretonneux. It was their father who confirmed Arthur's inscription. Initially I thought that the reference to 'boys' was a reference to all the Australian soldiers in that battle. Now I feel sure that the father was directly addressing his two sons. But it's true, all the Australians fought "like heroes fight" at Villers-Bretonneux between the 24th and the 27th of April 1918.