Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

From https://www.ww1cemeteries.com/high-tree-cemetery.html

3656 Private
Joseph Henry Taylor
​2nd Australian Pioneers
5th October 1918, aged 32.
Row A. 1.

Son of John and Clara Jane Taylor. Native of Isis, Queensland.

​His headstone bears the inscription; "The Great White Soul That Was You Lives On."

​The circumstances of Joseph Taylor's death are still quite sketchy, a court of enquiry was set up on 8th November 1918 to give an official version of events. The court concluded that Joseph Taylor had been wounded and taken prisoner.

Later interviews with other members of his Pioneer section made it clear that Joseph had been killed in action on 5th October.

2186 Private S. R. Williams gave these details; "I did not see Taylor of "C" Company wounded (I think through body by bullet) at Montbrehain in the morning. He started out and must have been killed on the way, as I afterwards met a D. A. C. (Divisional Ammunition Column) man I know named Private Leo Elliott, he told me that he had found and buried a man of my company named Taylor. He knew all about him and I feel sure it must have been him."

In April 1919, Leo Elliott himself gave these details; "I saw him lying dead at a cemetery just outside of Montbrehain, just alongside of the light railway line that was there in October. To look at his wounds, it looked very much like one of his own bombs which he was carrying in his pocket, went off and blew half his side out, that is all I can say about him."

Corporal H. E. Barrett later discovered Joe Taylor's grave when he returned to Montbrehain and re-visited the battlefield, the grave being marked by a rough cross with Joe Taylor's details on it.

Eventually he was buried in High Tree Cemetery, Montbrehain, close to where he fell.