The Little Boy and the Lost Diggers


The Little Boy and the Lost Diggers

This evocative image of a little boy hoisted upon the shoulders of two laconic-looking ANZACs has always captivated me. 

While we can only guess the fate of these unknown original ANZACs, we do know the boy’s identity.

He’s Henri Duboille. 

Henri befriended many of the soldiers who visited Louise and Antoinette Thuillier’s photography studio in Vigancourt, northern France. 

Henri is about four years old in this photograph. Tragically his father died in a German prisoner-of-war camp. 

When Henri grew up, he become a successful businessman and, in 1944, married a local woman called Christiane. 

In a strange twist of fate, Christiane fervently believed that an Australian soldier had fathered her. 

As it turned out, her mother, Blanche Harmand, had become pregnant to an Australian soldier who Christiane only knew as ‘Samuel’. 

Whenever Christiane asked her mother about her absent father, Blanche replied, ‘He was a soldier, he was killed.’ 

Christiane remembered her mother visiting countless military cemeteries, in the forlorn hope of  discovering some clue as to Samuel’s fate.

Apparently, when Blanche died, her mother burned all her private papers, perhaps hoping to forever hide Samuel’s identity and, in doing so, erasing the perceived stain of a child born out of wedlock. 

Official historian Charles Bean estimated that 15,000 war brides arrived in Australia after the Great War, confirming that such liaisons were commonplace.  

Photo and story sourced from: The Lost Diggers by Ross Coulthart

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