Bravest scout at Gallipoli. Ryan Butta. 2024.

Harry Freame was the first Australian soldier to win the Distinguished Conduct Medal at Gallipoli. He risked his life again and again to scout the battlefield, reporting invaluable intelligence and relieving stranded soldiers. Some say he should have got the VC but didn’t because he was half-Japanese, a fact he tried hard to conceal.

After the war, Harry (real name Wyndham Henry Kobe Freame) became a soldier settler and champion apple grower. But in the lead-up to World War II, he was recruited into Australian intelligence. Extraordinarily, this fact was leaked  by the Australian press, and the Japanese secret police tried to assassinate Harry not long after his arrival in Tokyo in 1941. He died back in Australia a few weeks later. Harry was the first Australian to die on secret service for Australia, but his sacrifice has never been officially acknowledged.