the Battle for Messines Ridge. During their advance, the company overran several machine-gun posts and captured a German field gun; Jacka's actions went unrecognised. On 8 July, he was wounded by a sniper near Ploegsteert Wood, resulting in nearly two months hospitalisation. Returning to the front, he led the 14th Battalion on 26 September in an attack against German pill-boxes during the Battle of Polygon Wood. Jacka was recommended for the Distinguished Service Order a second time for this feat, but again it was not granted. In May 1918, Jacka was finally removed from the conflict when, outside the village of Villers-Bretonneux, he was badly gassed and a missile passed through his trachea. He was evacuated to No. 20 Casualty Clearing Station at Vignacourt, where it was thought that he would not recover. When he did, he was sent to Britain for two operations and a long recuperative period. He returned to Australia on 6 September 1919 and his AIF appointment ended on 10 January 1920, when he returned to Melbourne to a hero's welcome. Later life After the war, Jacka had a job waiting for him with the Forests Department, but together with R. O. Roxburgh and E. J. L. Edmonds, both former members of the 14th Battalion, he established the electrical goods importing and exporting business Roxburgh, Jacka & Co. Pty Ltd. The business was heavily financed by John Wren, but collapsed with the Great Depression in 1931. On 17 January 1921, at St Mary's Catholic Church, St Kilda, Jacka married Frances Veronica Carey, a typist from his office. The pair settled in St. Kilda, and later adopted a daughter, Betty. In September, 1929, he was elected to the Council of the City of St Kilda, becoming mayor the following year. Much of his civic work was characterised by his strong interest in assisting the unemployed, defending evictees and proposing public works for the 'sussos': 'sustenance workers', employed on public works by the Government as a relief measure. On 14 December 1931, Jacka collapsed after a council meeting and was admitted to Caulfield Military Hospital. On 17 January 1932, one week after his 39th birthday, he died from chronic nephritis; he was buried at St Kilda Cemetery, with eight other Victoria Cross recipients acting as pallbearers and an estimated 6,000 witnesses to the burial as his body passed en route to the cemetery. Albert Jacka's Victoria Cross is