On 19 February 1919, the Newcastle Morning Herald reported that Herb Smith, one of Adamstown’s soccer soldiers, had returned during the past week and was looking well. What was not mentioned was Private Smith’s irregular wartime experience. One month after joining his battalion in the field in France in October 1916 he was diagnosed with trench foot and transferred to hospital in Etaples, France. By March 1917 as time was approaching for his redeployment to the front he went AWL on 6 March and was apprehended by the Military Police two days later. He was given 28 days Field Punishment. On 12 April 1917 he went AWL again. This time it took the Military Police three weeks to find him. Private Smith was sentenced to 12 months in military prison.
Upon his release in May 1918 he joined the 20th Battalion where he went AWL yet again from 18 July to 31 July. After his arrest he injured his wrist “accidentally” on 4 August and was transferred to England where he remained until the end of the war. He moved to Melbourne in 1919, married, and was father to five children. Herb Smith died in 1955, aged 61.