During World War One Tim Tovell of the No. 4 Squadron RAAF befriended a French orphan known as Henri or Digger. The child became an unofficial mascot, was given a custom made AIF uniform, and at the end of the war was smuggled back to Australia. As an adult Henri was killed in a car accident and is buried at Fawkner Cemetery, Victoria. Members of the No 4 Squadron subscribed for a memorial stone.Five black and white image. Top Left, Digger and his adopted father Tim Tovell, and the oats bagged he was smuggled in. Top right: Defence training at Hurdcott. Centre: Henri as an unofficial member of the AIF. Bottom left: Henri as a member of the RAAF. Bottom right: The last resting place of Henri/Digger at Fawkner Cemetery. The statue depicts Henri as he was when he first came to the 4th squadron. henri, digger, aif, raaf, tim tovell, no 4 squadron, fawkner cemetery, world war one, flight, aeroplane, hurdcott

ill, notes, p.234.non-fictionThe dark clouds returned and gathered about the boy. His eyes grew distant, and he began to tremble. He heard not only shells exploding, but the cries of dying men . . . He was stumbling over churned earth, looking into the face of an officer, bloodied red as the poppies, ripped apart in the Flanders mud . . . A small boy, an orphan of the First World War, wanders into the Australian airmen's mess in Germany, on Christmas Day in 1918. A strange boy, with an uncertain past and an extraordinary future, he became a mascot for the air squadron and was affectionately named 'Young Digger'. And in one of the most unusual incidents ever to emerge from the battlefields of Europe after the Great War, this solitary boy was smuggled back to Australia by air mechanic Tim Tovell, a man who cared for the boy so much that he was determined, however risky, to provide Young Digger with a new family and a new life in a new country, far from home.world war 1914-1918 - children - biography, henri tovelle