Sixteen-year-old Vincent O’Farrell was too young to go to war, yet it was not enough to save his life.
He drowned when washed off his horse while crossing Little Gin Creek, in the Longreach region, central Queensland, in 1917.
Newspapers reported a ‘black tracker’ unsuccessfully dived for the body.
Little Gin Creek is a few kilometres south-west of Longreach. The town’s rail and road access from the east had been cut by heavy rains.
It was a time when newspapers were running long casualty lists of those killed by war.
SOURCE: Cairns Post, Friday 23 November 1917, Page 4
Way to go Australia 