separate force for overseas service known as the Australian Imperial Force. Despite this, many members of the Kennedy Regiment enlisted in the AIF, most of them, including the battalion's commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Toll, joining the 31st Battalion which was raised at Enoggera in Brisbane as part of the 8th Brigade in August 1915. The 31st Battalion, AIF, was formed with two companies from Queensland and two companies from Victoria and concentrated at Broadmeadows in Victoria before departing from Melbourne in October 1915. Initially, it was sent to Egypt where it was involved in the defence of the Suez Canal against the Turks, thus earning another battle honour—"Egypt 1915–16". Upon the battalion's arrival in Egypt, the 8th Brigade had been unattached at divisional level, but in early 1916, it was assigned to the 5th Division, after a reorganisation that saw the AIF expanded from two infantry divisions to five. In July 1916 the battalion arrived in France where its first involvement of war on the Western Front was the Battle of Fromelles, during which it suffered over 500 casualties and was so badly mauled that it undertook no more offensive action for the rest of the year. In 1917, the battalion was involved in the Allied advance towards the Hindenburg Line, although because it was employed mainly in the flank protection role in this time, the only major fighting that it was involved in was at Polygon Wood during the Battle of Passchendaele in the Ypres sector in September 1917. It was here that Private Patrick Joseph Bugden, an original member of the Kennedy Regiment, performed the actions that led to him receiving the Victoria Cross. On 15 May 1918, Sergeant David Emmett Coyne was nominated for the Victoria Cross for throwing himself on a hand-grenade that he had thrown after it had accidentally bounced back off a parapet, in order to protect other soldiers. However, as this was not in the face of the enemy, the posthumous nomination was changed to that of the Albert Medal in Gold, the only such medal issued to a member of the AIF (it was later superseded by the George Cross). Later, in August 1918, the 31st Battalion was involved in the last Allied offensive of the war when it took part in the fighting that resulted in the capture of Villers Bretonneux and then Bullecourt. Later, in September, the battalion was