World War I
In 1917, Wilkins returned to his native Australia, joining the Australian Flying Corps in the rank of Second Lieutenant. Wilkins later transferred to the general list and in 1918 was appointed as an official war photographer. In June 1918 Wilkins was awarded the Military Cross for his efforts to rescue wounded soldiers during the Third Battle of Ypres. The following month Wilkins was promoted to Captain and became officer commanding No.3 (Photographic) Sub-section of the Australian war records unit. His work frequently led him into the thick of the fighting and during the Battle of the Hindenburg Line he assumed command of a group of American soldiers who had lost their officers in an earlier attack, directing them until support arrived. Wilkins was subsequently awarded a bar to his Military Cross.
Subsequent to the war, Wilkins served in 1921-1922 as an ornithologist aboard the Quest on the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition to the Southern Ocean and adjacent islands.
Read more about this topic: Hubert Wilkins
Famous quotes containing the words war i, world and/or war:
“A nice war is a war where everybody who is heroic is a hero, and everybody more or less is a hero in a nice war. Now this war is not at all a nice war.”
—Gertrude Stein (18741946)
“Although the stupid, unthinking world may approve what you have done, in your heart you know that, but for your treachery, the boy you loved would be alive today. If anyone is responsible for his death, you killed him, and for that murder you will live and die in the contempt and loathing of your own heart.”
—Karl Brown (18971990)
“The more prosperous and settled a nation, the more readily it tends to think of war as a regrettable accident; to nations less fortunate the chance of war presents itself as a possible bountiful friend.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)