Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Biography:

John Arthur Bowen, AKA Jack, was born on the 10th of May 1896 Beechforest, Colac, Victoria, Australia, Annie and Alfred Bowen’s fifth born.  In February 1916 at 19 years of age, he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF) in the 39th Battalion, following in his older brother Daniel’s footsteps, Daniel had enlisted a year earlier on September 2015 joining the (AIF) 15th Battalion and shipped to the Western Front France in March 2016.

Three months later after training at the Signal School, he and another soldier, Edward Ross, departed Melbourne on the HMAT Ascanius, Like his brother Daniel he was headed for the Western Front. Sadly, on the 30th September 1916 while Daniel and John Arthur (Jack) were away at war, their father Alfred died at home in Beech Forest from heart failure caused by the pneumonia he had been suffering for some days. He died intestate, Daniel applied to the courts to be administrator of his estate, namely the dairy farm at Beech Forest where the family had lived for over twenty years and fought so hard to build and rebuild.

Alfred was active in his community, being on the committee for the Beech Forest and Otway Produce Society. His death must have come as a shock to his family and the community in which he served. Alfred’s death was cause for Daniel to seek discharge from service for family reasons, though the process was slow by the 21st July 1917 he had returned home to take care of his grieving mother. John Arthur remained at the Western Front.

John Arthur doesn’t seem to have suffered as badly from the usual infections and diseases the men in France suffered during the war; except that he had no sooner arrived in France and he was hospitalised with the mumps.  On the 23rd August 1917, 18 months after he had enlisted, John Arthur was promoted to Lance Corporal. He sustained injuries that didn’t require hospitalisation in an operation on the 6th April 1918, on the same day he was promoted to Corporal.

Tragically, just months before the end of the war, on the 10th May 1918 his 22nd birthday, Corporal John Arthur Bowen was killed in action at Mericourt, France. Mercifully, he was instantly killed when a fragment of shrapnel hit him in the forehead while he was on duty at the Headquarters signal station. He was buried in the Mericourt L’Abbe Communal Cemetery Extension, Plot II; Row A, Grave No. 7.

He was recorded on the Beech Forest Honour Roll alongside 11 other men from Beech Forest lost in the Great War. 1919 – One year later Annie and the family placed a memorial notice in The Argus, to commemorate the loss of John Arthur. However, tragedy struck the family once more when just two months later, on the 21 July 1919 Annie died suddenly at home at Beech Forest.

The record of her death stated that she died of natural causes and that no inquest or inquiry was necessary. One wonders what ‘natural cause’ could possibly have contributed to Annie’s death at just 56 years of age, however with the loss of both her husband and son so close together, it’s almost a certainty that the stress contributed to her untimely death.

During John Arthur Bowen’s service, he was able to send a photograph postcard of himself in his service unform to his younger brother Francis Stuart Bowen back in Australia, many of these postcards were made and acquired in Bedford England prior to being shipped out to the Western Front.

In honour of his older brother John Arthur Bowen who lost his life in World War One, Francis Stuart Bowen named one of his son’s John, to which was further passed on to the next generation.