John Patrick O'NEILL

John Patrick O'NEILL Update Details

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O'NEILL, John Patrick

Service Number:	1812
Enlisted:	Not yet discovered
Last Rank:	Lance Corporal
Last Unit:	13th Infantry Battalion
Born:	West Maitland, New South Wales, Australia, 1896
Home Town:	West Maitland, Maitland, New South Wales
Schooling:	West Maitland Marist Brothers School, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation:	Station hand
Died:	Accidental (Injuries), France, 6 January 1917
Cemetery:	Heilly Station Cemetery V. F. 29,
Memorials:	Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, West Maitland Superior Public School Honor Roll

World War 1 Service

17 Dec 1915:	Involvement Private, 1812, 30th Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '16' embarkation_place: Sydney embarkation_ship: HMAT Berrima embarkation_ship_number: A35 public_note: ''
17 Dec 1915:	Embarked Private, 1812, 30th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Berrima, Sydney
6 Jan 1917:	Involvement Lance Corporal, 1812, 13th Infantry Battalion, --- :awm_ww1_roll_of_honour_import: awm_service_number: 1812 awm_unit: 13 Battalion awm_rank: Lance Corporal awm_died_date: 1917-01-06

A Private memorial to Lance Corporal John O'Neill

In establishing the cemeteries after the war, the Imperial War Graves Commission had strict rules about private memorials. This was to ensure that all soldiers, regardless of rank, nationality, religion or wealth, received the same headstone. This is why you can visit cemeteries day after day and just be struck by the sameness and the symmetry of these places. On a very rare occasion, you come across an exception to this rule and we have one in Heilly Station Cemetery.
Lance Corporal John O’Neill of the 13th Infantry Battalion was at a school of instruction in the use of grenades when a faulty grenade exploded and severely wounding him in the head. He died at the 38th Casualty Clearing Station on the 6 January 1917 and was buried in the adjacent Heilly Station Cemetery. The Court of Enquiry found that a faulty grenade was the cause of the accident. Originally, the grave markers were small wooden crosses, and these headstones were first erected much later. How this memorial got to be erected is unknown, but we do know from the inscription that it was his friends who arranged this, “Erected by his comrades”.
When the cemetery was being rebuilt in the early 1920s, the Imperial War Graves Commission wrote a long letter to the Australian Army in Melbourne outlining the policy for grave markers and asking the Australian Army to find out from the next-of-kin how they would like the private memorial disposed of. The Australian Army got in contact with John O’Neill’s father, and they sent his reply back to the Imperial War Graves Commission – “I beg to state that my son’s comrades erected a very substantial monument over my son’s grave at Heilly Cemetery. I would feel very disappointed, so also would his comrades, if it were replaced by a regulation stone.” There was scope to retain a private memorial if it was ‘of a durable nature’, but the Commission took no responsibility for maintenance. It seems that this argument won over the bureaucrats at the Imperial War Graves Commission in London and Lance Corporal John O’Neill’s private memorial remains in Heilly Station Cemetery.

Virtual
War Memorial
Australia