Gordon Charles Naley had enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 17 September 1914 at Morphettville, South Australia. He was appointed to the 16th Battalion, which was commissioned to Gallipoli. Naley was later evacuated from Gallipoli due to illness to the Military Hospital in Fulham, England. After his recovery in 1916, he was sent to Etaples, France, where he was sent to the trenches on the Western Front. On the 11 April 1917, his battalion campaigned a unsuccessful assault at the Hindenburg line at Bullecourt, Naley was wounded and captured. He was sent to the prison of war camps at Limburg and Zerbst in Germany for twenty-one months, and then was sent to England on 6 January 1919. On 23 July 1919 he arrived in Adelaide.
