Lance Corporal Alexander McRae’s body was recovered after what was believed to be a bullet from a sniper or a German machine gun struck him in the forehead on April 23, 1918.

Monday marks 100 years since that day and his memory lives on.

He was the only son of Peter and Georgina McRae, who lived at 22 Hill St in Launceston. 

Enlisting at Claremont in Southern Tasmania in January, 1915, Lance Corporal McRae was 20 when he joined the 12^th Battalion.

His service records on the National Archives of Australia show he travelled to Gallipoli, Cairo, England, and France during his time at war.

Since his death, a collection of letters and photographs mailed by Lance Corporal McRae during his service have been passed on through generations.

One letter was sent to his mother from Zeitoun in Cairo, Egypt on February 5, 1916 and included a photograph of Lance Corporal McRae and a soldier from the 4^th Battalion.

“I am in a details camp here. We are composed of sick and wounded from the different hospitals and are waiting to be sent back to our respective battalions,” Lance Corporal McRae wrote.

“I don’t think we will be sent back for awhile as most of the battalions are over strength having received double lots of reinforcements when they came back to Egypt.

“I am enclosing a couple of photos of myself and a friend named Walker in the 4^th Battalion, which we had taken in Cairo. He has just received word that his brother has been killed in France, and is recovering from a bad wound himself.”

Another was mailed from Gallipoli, eight months after he enlisted.

“Dear Mum, thanks for the parcel, which I received yesterday, there is always a demand for socks here,” he wrote.

“I noticed in the papers that came by last mail, that vigorous recruiting campaigns are being carried out all over Australia. I can’t give you very much news while we are here.

“I remain your loving son.”

In April 1916, he wrote about a royal meeting before the 12^th Battalion left the Suez Canal in Egypt for France.

“We were received by the Prince of Wales and staff before we left the canal. The Prince is a small and delicate looking chap,” he said.

He also wrote about his battles with the Germans, who Australian soldiers often referred to as ‘Fritz’.

Writing from France in September, 1916, Lance Corporal McRea detailed those encounters.

“We have had a couple of tough scraps with ‘Fritz’ lately,” he said. 

“I suppose you have read the accounts of the fight in the paper. I got out of it with nothing worse than a bit of skin knocked of my nose with a shrapnel pellet.”

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Weeks and months passed between letters, for a number of reasons. 

Sometimes he was in hospital, with jaundice, trench feet or scabies.

Other times the mail ship sunk. 

In one of his final letters in January, 1918, his family learned he had spent Christmas and New Years Day in the firing line.

“It wasn’t so bad barring the snow,” Lance Corporal McRea wrote.

“I hope that you got the card and handkerchief that I posted a couple of months ago. I suppose you are getting summery weather now and everything looks dry.

“There is not much news I can give you from here. There are two of us in a little dugout and we have to crawl out backwards.”

After he was killed, an urgent telegram was sent from Hobart to Launceston, confirming his death.

A letter followed, from another soldier.

Chas Hargreaves wrote that Lance Corporal McRea was his friend and he had learned of his death a few weeks after it happened.

“He was one of a party holding a post, which the Germans were firing at heavily with rifles and machine guns,” he wrote.

“Alex and his gun crew were ordered to return fire, and although it was looking for trouble to show their heads above, Alex said to his crew, ‘well its an order, we’ll have to carry it out’, and was fixing his gun up, when he got a bullet through the head. It was instantaneous.”

His sacrifice and bravery continues to be remembered, with more than just his letters passed on through his family on the North-West Coast of Tasmania.

Given he was the only son to Georgina and Peter, the McRea name did not continue.

Instead his great-great-nephew, Alex Hammond, was named after him.

On Mr Hammond’s 18^th birthday, he was gifted a box filled with the late-Lance Corporal’s letters.

The collection was passed onto him by his grandmother, Mary, who was Lance Corporal McRea’s niece and the daughter of one of his four sisters.

Mr Hammond said each letter was a reminder about the sacrifice that had been made for his future.

“It’s an insight into how tough they did it, down in the trenches,” he said.

“He was very unlucky to make it through the whole war to then die soon before it ended.”

The interest in Lance Corporal McRea’s stories doesn’t end with Alex Hammond either.

His uncle and the soldier’s great-nephew, John Hammond, hopes the letters from war will end up in a museum.

“The family were shattered by his death at such a young age and it left a great sadness as to the injustice of him not having the opportunity to live a long and fruitful life,” John Hammond said.  

“The sadness is still felt in the family three generations later, hence why we want to see his story told to remember and honour him.”

The Hammond family is now working with both the Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston and the National War Memorial in Canberra.

“To have a complete collection of letters from a 12th Battalion soldier who was in the first wave to volunteer for the Australian Imperial Force, and who served at Gallipoli and was killed in action on the western front toward the end of the war is very rare and of national significance,” John Hammond said.