The account also has a Port Pirie connection and in a similar instance has treasures of a soldier killed at war being given to loved ones.

This touching story is about local woman Hazel Penny and her father Albert Leslie Griffin who at the age of 23 while a railway porter at Nairne joined the Australian Imperial Force in 1916.

On September 28 that year he embarked from Adelaide aboard the ‘Anchises’ bound for England then he headed to France.

Aboard the ship was another South Australian Private Thomas Jesser, of Baroota, also aged 23. During the encounter Private Jesser was wounded in France, but three months later was back in the trenches where he died from his wounds in June, 1917.

Meanwhile, Private Albert Griffin, known as Les, returned from the war to live in Port Pirie and, although he never spoke of his tour of duty, it was learned that he and Private Jesser had become firm friends.

Mr Griffin died in 1969 and recently while looking through some old photos belonging to her father, Mrs Penny found an image of Private Jesser along with a card from his funeral and a newspaper clipping about his life and subsequent death.

John Penny, son of Mrs Penny, who is an avid

historian, decided to find the living relatives of his grandfather’s wartime friend. While researching on the internet he found a Megan Jesser living in Townsville, whose great grandfather was a brother to Thomas Jesser.

She was thrilled to receive news about the soldier.

It appears that the military tradition carried on throughout the family as Megan Jesser’s grandfather Linthal Jesser served in World War II and her father Dudley Jesser served in Vietnam.

Megan, who is married with two children, recently joined the Royal Australian Air Force.

In a wonderful act of compassion, 92 years after Thomas Jesser’s death in France, Mrs Penny sent the newspaper cutting, burial card and photo to Megan Jesser, giving some insight into the man that he was.