
Archy Hamilton (1897-1915) was an Australian stockman, prize-winning sprinter, and Australian Imperial Force soldier who served with the ANZAC Corps during World War I. He was killed in action during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915.
Biography[]

Hamilton before the war
Archy Hamilton was born in Western Australia, Australia in 1897. Hamilton was raised in a family of farmers, and his uncle Jack trained him to be a runner like his idol, the 100-yard sprinting world champion Harry Lasalles. Hamilton was immensely talented, once beating a bullying farmhand Les McCann in an informal race across rough terrain after McCann challenged Hamilton to race him barefoot as Hamilton rode on horseback. Just a few days later, Archy competed in an athletics carnival held to benefit the Entente war effort amid World War I, defeating a talented sprinter from Perth, Frank Dunne. However, Archy decided to give all of his prize money to his uncle, as he insisted on joining the Australian Light Horse due to his sheer patriotism and his desire to travel as much as his uncle had. Archy failed to enlist at the carnival, as another potential recruit identified Hamilton as 18 years old and not 21 like the required minimum age, but Frank Dunne met him at a cafe later that day to congratulate him, and, when Archy told Frank that he had failed to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force, Dunne suggested that he could try enlisting in Perth instead.
The two penniless men proceeded to stow away on a train bound for Perth, but, upon finding that the train had instead stopped at a remote desert station instead of Perth, they confronted the Aboriginal station master, who told them that the next train to Perth was two weeks away, and joked that they could otherwise wak 50 miles across the dry lake bed. Archy decided to do so, and Frank followed him, initially attempting to persuade him to turn back rather than die in the heat. Along the way, the two debated the war, with Archy expressing his patriotic beliefs and demanding that the young and athletic Frank join the war, and Frank refusing, saying that it was England's war and not Australia's. The two men were later given water by a lone traveler whom they had come across, and Frank was amused to see that the traveler did not know that Australia and Germany were at war, and had Archy attempt to answer the traveler's questions about why they were warring with the Germans, and why the Australians were deployed to Turkey; the traveler, too, stated that the war was not Australia's, and, when Archy suggested that, if not defeated in Europe, the Germans could be in Australia next, the traveler quipped that the Germans were welcome to.
The duo ultimately reached a cattle station where they were given food and drink by the locals, and, when asked why the travelers had come, Archy revealed that he was headed to Perth to join the Light Horse. The wealthy farmers congratulated Hamilton, with the father saying that, if he had a son, he would have joined the Light Horse, and the attractive daughter telling Hamilton that most of the local boys had joined the Light Horse, and that she liked their uniforms. Meanwhile, the family shamed Frank for his intent not to join the war, as Frank said that he had business elsewhere, even though the mother said that the Germans were crucifying kittens on church doors in Belgium.
When the two men reached Perth, Frank helped Hamilton complete an enlistment sheet, and he told Hamilton that he would need to use an assumed name to join the military. Going by the pseudonym "Archibald Lasalles", and made to appear older with the help of Frank's use of a burnt cork to give Hamilton the appearance of stubble, Hamilton was allowed to enlist, while Frank's inability to ride a horse forced him to bid farewell to Hamilton and join the infantry instead. They were both shipped off to Cairo, Egypt on different troopships, arriving at their training camp in July 1915. During a training exercise which pitted the Australian infantry against their cavalry, Hamiltonreunited with Dunne during a simulated bayonet charge and embraced, and, after the exercise, they visited Cairo together and raced to the Great Pyramid of Giza, reaching it at the same time, and carving their names onto it. Dunne was able to transfer into the Light Horse after the Major saw their use as sprinters, as well as because the Light Horse were not to be mounted during the Gallipoli campaign.

Hamilton and Dunne at the officers' ball
The two men were allowed to join an officers' ball after their commanding officer, Major Barton, received a letter indicating that his men were to be sent out from Alexandria to Gallipoli the next day, and, when Dunne and Hamilton arrived at Gallipoli with the others, they found themselves bored in the trenches. In August, the light horse were finally given orders to attack the Turks in a diversionary attack on the Nek while the infantry attacked Lone Pine. Major Barton initially nominated Hamilton to serve as the unit's runner, but Hamilton insisted that he had come to fight in the war, and he instead nominated Frank to serve as the runner.

Archy Hamilton's death
On the day of the assault on the Nek, Hamilton watched as the first wave of ANZAC soldiers was massacred by Ottoman machine-guns, and he briefly came across Les McCann again before countless others were mown down in the second wave. Hamilton and McCann were called up to join the third wave before Dunne could return with orders from General Gardiner to postpone the assault due to false reports of Australian marker flags reaching the Ottoman trenches, and Hamilton - sensing his doom - dropped his rifle and sprinted towards the Turkish trench like he had done during his running days, only to be shot across the chest by a machine gun, head flung back, as if breaking the tape at the finish of a race, and falling backwards.