WOODS, Horace Charles
| Service Numbers: | 1448, 1148, 1448A |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 4 January 1915 |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | 13th Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Launceston, Tasmania, Australia, 19 June 1895 |
| Home Town: | Campbell Town, Northern Midlands, Tasmania |
| Schooling: | Not yet discovered |
| Occupation: | Ship steward |
| Died: | Killed in action, Gallipoli, Turkey, 22 August 1915, aged 20 years |
| Cemetery: |
Embarkation Pier Cemetery, Gallipoli.Turkey (Special Memorial D 24) |
| Memorials: | Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour |
World War 1 Service
| 4 Jan 1915: | Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 1448, 13th Infantry Battalion | |
|---|---|---|
| 11 Feb 1915: | Involvement Private, 1148, 13th Infantry Battalion, ANZAC / Gallipoli, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '11' embarkation_place: Sydney embarkation_ship: HMAT Seang Bee embarkation_ship_number: A48 public_note: '' | |
| 11 Feb 1915: | Embarked Private, 1148, 13th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Seang Bee, Sydney | |
| 22 Aug 1915: | Involvement Private, 1448A, 13th Infantry Battalion, ANZAC / Gallipoli, --- :awm_ww1_roll_of_honour_import: awm_service_number: 1448A awm_unit: 13 Battalion awm_rank: Private awm_died_date: 1915-08-22 |
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Add my storyBiography contributed by Stephen Brooks
Private Horace Woods, a Tasmanian, joined up in Sydney with the 13th Battalion, during January 1915. He was a sailor and had been working with the Mercantile Marine prior to enlisting, working on ships trading between Australia and New Zealand. He was, prior to that, serving aboard H.M.S. Drake, the last Imperial flagship on the Australia station.
His father was superintendent of the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society, Launceston, Tasmania, and he had a younger brother, Cecil Woods, serving aboard the H.M.A.S. Australia during 1914.
A letter home to his father, from Egypt before the Gallipoli campaign, was published in the Launceston Examiner in 1915. He signed off with, “Once again, good-bye, dad, and God bless you.—From your loving son, HORACE C. WOODS. P.S .— If you know of anybody who have relations here you may tell them that we are all happy, anxious to get at the Germans (Turks don’t count) and short of good pipe tobacco. -H.C.W.
Horace was at the Anzac Landing, a remarkable effort considering he only enlisted in Sydney in January 1915. He was wounded five days later, badly enough to be evacuated to England for treatment. He rejoined his unit on Anzac seven days before he was killed in action on 22 August 1915, during a failed attack by the 13th Battalion on Hill 60.
Horace was originally buried at the Chailak Dere Cemetery by Reverend Father Power about 1½ miles NE of Anzac. After the war, in 1924, the Imperial War Graves Commission went to concentrate the graves in that area but was unable to identify individual graves. The remains that were recovered were moved to the Embarkation Pier Cemetery and Special Memorial headstones were erected with the words “Believed to be buried in this Cemetery, actual grave unknown” inscribed into them.
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