Harry Smith was an ideal recruit for the newly formed AIF in 1914. The son of Harry Lionel Smith and Meea Patterson Smith, he was one of three children, born to the Ballarat East couple.He was single, 25 years old, and had completed Senior Cadets training. He was a commanding, for those days, 5' 10" tall , with dark hair and brown eyes, and no scars other than an innoculation mark on his right arm. He was drafted in as a Private on 17 August, 1914, soon after the declaration of war, and attached to the newly formed 6th Battalion. Within two days, he had been promoted to Corporal. Thirteen days later, on 1 September, he was again promoted, this time to Sergeant.
The 6th Battalion as among the first infantry units raised for the AIF by Colonel H.E. 'Pompey' Elliott and embarked only two months after war was declared. The new soldiers left Melbourne on H.M.A.T Ulysses on 23 October, 1914, stopping at Albany to join the rest of the fleet, and arriving in Egypt on 2 December for further training.
On 25 April, 1915, Sergeant Harry Smith and the battalion took part in the Gallipoli landing, as part of the second wave. Ten days later, they were transferred to Cape Helles for the ill-planned attack on the village of Krithia. On 13 June, he was wounded, with a gunshot wound to his right side. He had 36 days in hospital and on 21 June was transferred via the hospital ship Braemar Castle to the Officers' Convalescent Hospital at Draganara, Malta.
On 6 July, Harry Smith was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant and moved to the Machine Gun Section. The withdrawal from Gallipoli came at the end of the year, in December, but Harry Smith appears to have been getting medical treatment at Lemnos, returning to his battlion on 25 December.
Following the withdrawal from the Gallipoli Peninsula, he fell ill with influenza on 9 January, 1915, and was admitted to the 2nd Australian General Hospital at Ghezerah. He was ill again on 24 January, coming down with Enteric Fever, and admitted to hospital in Cairo. On 6 July, 1916 Smith given three months leave, described as having had typhoid and sent back to Australia on H.T. Runic.
By now the Western Front in France and Belgium was the major war action. On 25 October, 1916, Harry Smith once more embarked for the war, disembarking at Devonport, England. From there, he marched on to Durrington Camp, where he remained until the following year. it is probable that he was engaged here with training of new recruits - he was on the Supernumerary list and promoted to the rank of Captain.
It was not until the 26 April, 1917, that he went to France, where on 10 August, 1917, he was wounded in action with a gunshot wound to the chest. On 12 August, he was invalided to England, his career as an active soldier ended.
With the war over on 11 November, 1918, the troops began to go home. On 4 April, 1919, Harry Patterson Lee marched out to No 1 Group, Sutton Veny, and was to return to Australia on H.T. Armagh. However, when the ship reached Cape Town, South Africa, he, along with a friend, went AWOL for forty eight hours before he was arrested at 10pm on 25 April . He was taken into lock up at The Castle, Cape Town and charged with having failed to return to his his ship at expiry of shore leave. John Rylands, presumably of the Military Police wrote that 'I arrested the accused in Sir Lowry Rd, near the Toll Gate for being staggeringly drunk'. It was decided to send him, under close arrest, by train to Durban to rejoin the Armagh. However, on arrival at 8pm on the 30 April, 1919 they found that the ship had already left port, so Harry Smith was returned to jail in Cape Town. He finally embarked for Australia on 11 May, 1919, on board the H.T. Commonwealth, and was kept in confinement for the duration of the voyage, then retired from further service, having served in the AIF from 17 August, 1914 to 5 April, 1919.
In late 1919, Harry Smith was living at 54 Powlett St., East Melbourne. He married Kathleen Imelda Margovan on 27 October that year, at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Eastern Hill. The daughter, Mary Paterson Smith was born in 1920. In 1924, he was working as a manager, and the couple had settled at 40 Denmark St., Kew. in 1934, he was working in sales, and they were living at 5 Mayberry St., Brighton. Kathleen died in 1838, and in 1945, at the age of 55, he married again, to Lucy Arcadius Travers-Bell. They had two sons, James and Gregory
in 1967, the couple were back in Kew, this time at Flat 4, 6 Mackie Court, Kew, with Harry now a shopkeeper. Harry Patterson Smith died on 13 February, 1973, and is buried in the Cheltenham Cemetery.