GOON, Frederick
| Service Number: | 6786 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 12 January 1917, Dubbo, NSW |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | 20th Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Bendigo, Victoria, Australia, 1893 |
| Home Town: | Dubbo, Dubbo Municipality, New South Wales |
| Schooling: | Not yet discovered |
| Occupation: | Greengrocer |
| Died: | 12 March 1941, cause of death not yet discovered, place of death not yet discovered |
| Cemetery: |
Rookwood Cemeteries & Crematorium, New South Wales Zone D Anglican 13 0522 |
| Memorials: | Bendigo Central School Honor Roll, Bendigo Great War Roll of Honor |
World War 1 Service
| 12 Jan 1917: | Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 6786, 20th Infantry Battalion, Dubbo, NSW | |
|---|---|---|
| 21 Jun 1917: | Involvement Private, 6786, 20th Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '13' embarkation_place: Melbourne embarkation_ship: HMAT Suevic embarkation_ship_number: A29 public_note: '' | |
| 21 Jun 1917: | Embarked Private, 6786, 20th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Suevic, Melbourne |
Help us honour Frederick Goon's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.
Add my storyBiography contributed by Faithe Jones
Son of Mrs Elizabeth Goon, 376 Norton Street, Leichhardt, New South Wales
Biography contributed by Jack Coyne
The following extract on Frederick Goon AIF number 6786 is taken from the publication Chinese ANZACs of the Loddon Mallee Region published by the Golden Dragon Museum in Bendigo. Page 23
Frederick Goon (1893-1941) Fred Goon was the son of Long Gully, Bendigo, storekeeper Louey Fong Goon and his wife Elizabeth Johnstone. He enlisted in the A.I.F. at Dubbo on 12 January 1917, where he was working as greengrocer and residing at Talbragar Street.45 Originally assigned to the 1st Battalion Pioneers as a private, and then a Lance corporal, Frederick was transferred to the 20th Battalion as a private shortly before his departure from Australia in June 1917. He remained with this unit for the rest of the war, and was made acting lance corporal on two subsequent occasions before joining his unit in Belgium as a private on 26 December 1917. Goon’s first stint at the front was relatively short. He was loaded onto a field ambulance in Belgium on 9 March 1918 suffering from exposure to poison gas, and was later hospitalized at the Australian Military Hospital at Dartford for a period of 76 days as part of his road to recovery. Back home Goon’s photo, under the stark headline ‘GASSED’, was published in both the Bendigo Advertiser and the Bendigonian to inform the public that the ‘son of Mrs E. Goon, 140 Hargreaves-street, Bendigo’ was ‘suffering from the effects of gas poisoning’.46 By August Fred was deemed well enough to rejoin his unit in France, which he did on 12 September 1918. He would then have taken part in the action at Montbrehain on 3 October, which proved to the battalion’s last battle of the war. 47 After his return to Australia Goon settled down in Sydney, where most of his Bendigo born brothers and sisters were then living. Frederick Goon passed away at Surrey Hills, Sydney on 12 March 1941, aged only 47. It would seem likely that, as with so many others of his generation, his life was shortened by the effects of his war service. He was survived by a wife, Emma, and children.
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