Albert Percy Mallett was born on Guernsey, Channel Islands, in 1893. He arrived in Adelaide in 1912 with another Channel Islander, William Le Huray. They had been involved with vineries on Guernsey, growing grapes in glass houses. Mallett’s home address had been Havilland Vineries, St Peter Port, Guernsey. He lived at Semaphore, and turned out for the Port Adelaide soccer club in 1914, Port’s last season until 1920.
Mallett enlisted in the AIF on 20 January 1915, giving his occupation as “grower”. Allocated to the 7th Field Ambulance, AAMC, he was promoted to Lance/Cpl and served at Gallipoli for the last four months of the campaign. Posted to France in 1916 he was fatally wounded by a shell on July 28th, during the Battle of Pozieres.
He died in a field hospital the next day. In October 1916 a relative of a soldier who had served with Mallett sent a letter to the Adelaide Chronicle describing his death. It happened on his very first day on the Western Front. His team of stretcher bearers had just picked up a wounded man in No Man’s Land and had taken him to a first aid post when a shell hit the dugout.