Herbert Lawrence Ames joined the 1st AIF on 8 July, 1915. He was nineteen years' old, 5'8", with blond hair and a fair complexion. He was a bootmaker by trade, and had been apprenticed to Lavlon Austin, J.C., of Abbotsford, but probably at the time of enlistment, was working at the Bedgood Factory, Shoemakers, in Jolimont, as he gave this as his address. His East Melbourne connection is otherwise tenuous: his father, Herbert Ames, also worked at the Bedgood Factory.

Herbert Lawrence Ames enlisted at Broadmeadows and spent two months at a training depot before being taken on strength as a driver with the 11th Company Australian Service Corps. By 7 December,1916, he was in France, but on 12 December he was absent without leave for four hours and given 120 hours punishment. This does not seem to have taught him a lesson, because on 29 December, 1916, he was again before a tribunal, charged with 'criminal conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline in that he did, on 20 July, 1916, unlawfully discharge firearms in camp thereby causing injury to a horse, the property of H.M. Government'. In January, 1917, he was taken on strength with the 18th Company Australian Supply Corps. His fresh start, however, was accompanied by further offences: on 20 July, 1917, he overstayed his leave by 23 hours and was awarded 7 days F.P. No. 2. and again, 24-27 December, 1917, and again on 29 September, 1918, he was charged with being 'absent without leave from first parade, after being warned'. Perhaps, though, this should be seen in the light of his army experience: on 8 August, 1917, he was ill and sent to hospital overnight; on 21 October,1917,  he suffered a severe gunshot wound to his left leg and did not return to his unit until 20 March, 1918. Again, on 29 May, 1918, he was wounded in his left arm, returning to his unit on 14 June,1918.

Herbert Lawrence Ames returned to Australia on HMS Devanah on 8 May, 1919, and was discharged form service in Melbourne on 7 September that year. In Noember, 1919, he applied for free passage from England for his fiancee and married in 1920, to Isabel Norwell Kettie. By the  193os, he was living at 5 Edith St., Preston, and working as a Boot Finisher. He died at Preston in 1942, aged 46.