 On 1 January 1916 he was promoted to Lt Colonel and placed in charge of sanitation at Tel-el-Kebir overseeing a camp of 30,000 ANZAC troops.In October 1916 he was attached to the 10th Field Ambulance Division on the western front in Belgium.He won the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for his services at Messines Ridge in the summer of 1917.