Arthur Angrave was only eighteen when he first enlisted on 10 February, 1916, to serve in the AIF. He trained for three months and was given the rank of Lance Corporal  on 10 May, before being discharged as medically unfit, with a chronic cough, on 15 May. Ill-health was to plague him during the whole of his subsequent military career and it seems unlikely that he ever served in an active role at the front.

He re-enlisted on 12 February, 1917, naming as his next of kin his father, George Angrave, living at 20 Vale St., East Melbourne. Arthur Angrave now gave his age as 21 years and 9 months, though this seems unlikely, given his previous enlistment statement - he was more likely to be nineteen, but as he was six feet tall and 145 lbs. in weight, probably no-one checked too closely. On his marriage certificate in June, 1918, he also gave his age as 21 years, though he was probably twenty at the time. He gave his employment as 'railway employee' and later on his marriage certificate as 'shunter'.

He trained first at Royal Park, and then went to Bendigo to do Machine Gun training, embarking on 26 November, 1917, for Suez, and landing at Port Said on 27 December, 1917. He had been ill on the trip, being admitted with a sore throat to the ship's hospital on 11 December. On 9 January, 1918, he embarked at Port Said on H.M.T. Kashgar for Taranto, and 11 days later embarked from Cherbourg to Southampton and on to Hurdcott. Here he was again hospitalised, this time with measles and sent to the War Hospital, Southampton from 2-25 February, 1918, before marching in to the No.3 Command Depot. On 1 April, he was again sick, simply labelled 'debility', discharged again on 6 April and rejoined the No. 3 Depot. On 9 May, he was in hospital  for five days with tonsilitis, again rejoining the No. 3 Depot. On 22 August, he was in hospital for eleven days with 'debility', sent out on 4 September to No.2 Depot.

He also married on 3 June 1918: the ceremony was performed at St. Cuthbert's Chruch, Berwick, between Arthur Douglas Angrave and Margaret Ann Cromerty, daughter of a deep sea fisherman. He gave his father's occupation as a tobacco manufacturer, though on the electoral rolls of the time he was a tobacco worker and later, listed as a labourer. Margaret was 21, which is perhaps why he again upped his age to match hers. He was given leave with pay from 30 November, 1918, to 30 May, 1919, perhaps because Margaret had a child during this period. He was also on leave in July, 1919, when he was transferred ot the No.2 Group stationed at Sutton Very. 

On 8 August, 1919, he embarked on the Ceramic for the return trip to Australia, disembarking in Melbourne on 27 September. On 6 February, 1920, he was discharged from the AIF as medically unfit with pleurisy. He appears, with Margaret, on the electoral rolls in 1924 as a farmer living in Foster, then later as a manager, living in Foam St Elsternwick, and finally in 1972, as an engineer living in Kooyong Rd., Elsternwick.