Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Patrick Casey was a soldier that fought for the Australian Imperial Force in World War 1. Patrick Casey was born in 1890 in Cork, Ireland and later moved to Australia where he lived on St Vincent Street, Port Adelaide, South Australia. He worked as a fireman for several years before the war and had served in the Royal Engineers for 2 years. According to the attestation paper, he was unmarried and his next of kin was his aunt, Ms. Monaghan.

Casey was 24 years and 8 months of age when he enlisted for the war in 1914. He was accepted and was assigned to be a private for the 10th Battalion, with the regimental number of 1043.

The 10th battalion travelled on the HMAT ‘Ascanius’, which was heading to Europe after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. 4 months later, they embarked on the ship Alexandria to fight at the beginning of the Gallipoli battle where he joined the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force on the 2nd of March, 1915. During his time in Gallipoli Casey was admitted to the hospital several times for dysentery. Dysentery is an infection in the intestines that causes painful cramps, vomiting, and bloody diarrhea, it can be caught from swimming or consuming dirty or infected water. While in Gallipoli, Casey was promoted to Corporal on the 29th of June 1915. Corporal was the rank above private, and below Sergeant. The Corporals were responsible for a small army unit, they would make sure the soldiers in the unit were clean and well trained and their physical appearance was up to the standard. On the 14th of July 1915, Casey was charged with being absent for 3 days without leave for the first time and forfeited 1 day’s worth of pay.

After the Gallipoli campaign, Casey was admitted to the casualty clearing station on the 16th of August 1915, he was then found guilty on the 17th of December for 11 days absent without leave. On the 11th of December, he lost his privilege to be Corporal and was demoted back to a private. He was then found guilty of being absent without leave again on the 13th of March 1916 and was away for 69 days. On the 13th of March, Casey was awarded 14 days of field punishment 2. Field Punishment Number 2 required the prisoner to be placed in fetters or handcuffs, although they were not attached to a fixed object, the prisoner then had to participate in hard labour for a certain amount of days with a loss of pay. The Prisoner was still able to march with his unit and this was a relatively tolerable punishment. On the 18th of March 1916, Casey was sent back to Australia, labelled as undesirable. This was likely to Casey being charged with being absent without leave multiple times throughout the war. In total, he had forfeited 11 days of pay and had 83 days of absence without leave. After he returned to Australia Casey was discharged from the military force. During Casey’s time in the military during World War I he earnt the labelled 3 standard medals for participating at the time, he earnt the 1914-1915 Star, British War Medal, and the Victory Medal.

According to a letter that was written by John O’Leary, in 1919 to the officer in charge of defence in Melbourne, Casey was around 5 foot 9 inches/180 cm and 169 lbs/76 kg. He had a fresh complexion and brown hair and eyes. Casey had a tattoo on his arm that said, ‘My girl Lydia’ with the initials A.B. tattooed underneath. John O’Leary is assumed to be the brother-in-law of Patrick Casey, as within the letter he states that Casey married his sister 9 years ago, in 1910. Although O’Leary and his sister hadn’t seen him for 8 years. The writer wanted to know whether he was registered as married or single and to whom he left his will. O’Leary also states that he had sent another letter 4 years ago asking the same questions, using Casey’s real name, Alfred Baker. It is unknown why Casey had decided to use a fake name but most soldiers enlisting in the war who used a fake name were either underage or came from the opposing nation, although Casey was neither, he was 24 when he enlisted, and he was Irish (Ireland was part of Great Brittan). There is no further information about Patrick Casey’s time after the war and it is unknown where he went afterwards.