Cheops Pyramid: Amateur detectives identify Gallipoli-bound diggers in WW1 photo mystery

This is the headline for a story published on 11th November, Remembrance Day, about an ambitious project being carried out by a team of researchers at the Western Australian Genealogical Society Inc. (WAGS). They are aiming to identify all of the Australian soldiers posing on the steps of this huge Egyptian pyramid shortly before they were shipped off to the battlegrounds of Gallipoli in 1915. Many of these men never returned home.

The men pictured were all from the original contingent of officers and men of the 11th Battalion A.I.F. who embarked Fremantle in Western Australia on the 31st October 1914 and joined the convoy from Albany destined for Egypt.

Of the 703 men in the photo, 200 have been identified so far (highlighted in colour in this version of the photograph). The team at WAGS need your help to try and identify the rest of the men by the centenary of the day the photograph was taken, 10th January 2015.

One of the men listed on the Nominal Roll for the 11th Battalion A.I.F. was an officer in A. Company – 2nd Lieutenant Archibald Henry MACFARLANE whose next of kin were from Perth, Western Australia.