[1] He enlisted with the Australian Imperial Forces 10th Battalion within weeks of the outbreak of the Great War and sailed for Cairo on 22 October 1914.

He landed at Ari Burnu Beach, Gallipoli on 25 April 1915,[2] was wounded and repatriated as medically unfit in June 1916.

He took to journalism, moving to Sydney, where he taught English at Cleveland Street Intermediate High School until 1922 when he joined the staff at Smith's Weekly.

He was appointed editor of Ure Smith's Home magazine and co-editor of the quarterly Art in Australia, which he took over on Stevens' death in 1922.

Christchurch-based composer Richard Oswin made use of his poem "The Last to Leave" in his choral work commissioned by the New Zealand Secondary Students' Choir, Three Gallipoli Settings.