Bert Levy – Australia's first global Vaudeville star
1918 Bert & son attempt to enlist……
In June 1917, Bert Levy crossed the US / Canada border with his son Alwyn with the intent for them both to enlist in the Canadian military. Report below published in The Bulletin. Bert was 47 years of age.
The upper age for recruitment in the AIF was 44 and only if you were suitable for the Mining Corp. Recruitment age for the British and Canadian military in WW1 was actually 19 and it became 20 in Canada when they introduced conscription. Australians could enlist at 18 but in the early part of the war many young aussies had to ‘sit it out’ in the Salisbury Plains AIF camps waiting to turn 19. At the British insistence. Back here the Jewish Herald picked up the story six months later.
The prior year, 1917 Bert had been supporting the Imperial war effort by getting behind the issue of Liberty Bonds, a war bond that was sold in the United States to support the Allied cause in World War I.
See below the recruitment campaign to reach British citizens in Canada and the USA.
Bert Levy 
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