Kenneth McKinley Smorti, an accountant, was born in Australia and in 1916 he was living with his parents at ‘Fernleigh’ in Adderley Street, Auburn. The family were members of the St Philip’s Anglican Church. In Smorti’s service file is a sad document. It is the permission note from his parents saying: ‘Dear Sir, We hereby consent to my Son Kenneth enlisting in the Australian Imperial (Expeditionary) Forces Subject to medical fitness. Louis Smorti Elizabeth Emily Smorti.’ The phone number on this note suggests the father was either a wealthy merchant or a professional. Telephones in private homes were very few in Auburn in 1916. 6792 Private Smorti enlisted on 18 July 1916, giving his age as 18 5/12, hence the need for the permission note. So Smorti was 19 when killed in action on 4 October 1917 in the Passchendaele offensive in Belgium. He was one of at least six Auburn Memorial men who died while still in their teens. Perhaps Smorti’s young age explains why he was kept back at training camps in Australia (four months) and in the United Kingdom (eight months) before crossing to France and marching into the 4th Battalion on 19 August 1917. Smorti was killed in action less than two months later. His body was never found so his name is inscribed on the Menin Gate, the British Monument to the Missing in the Belgian town of Ypres (now Ieper). Smorti must have been a classical musician for he took a violin with him when he embarked for service overseas on the Port Nicholson in November 1916. The violin, ‘complete in case’ was returned from London to his parents with his effects. The Russian name of Smorti is one of the few non-British names on the Auburn War Memorial.