 On 4 January 1915 , Towner enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force . Assigned to the transport section of the 25th Battalion as a private , he embarked aboard HMAT Aeneas from Brisbane on 29 June , bound for Egypt . The troopship arrived in August , and the battalion spent the rest of the month training in the desert before transferring to the Gallipoli Peninsula . Towner , however , remained in Egypt with the army 's transportation elements . 
