SPINKS, Frederick Keith James
| Service Number: | 2473 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | Not yet discovered |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | 20th Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Bodalla, New South Wales, Australia, 3 June 1896 |
| Home Town: | Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales |
| Schooling: | Not yet discovered |
| Occupation: | Railway employee |
| Died: | Killed in Action, France, 26 July 1916, aged 20 years |
| Cemetery: |
No known grave - "Known Unto God" Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, Villers-Bretonneux, Picardie, France |
| Memorials: | Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Haymarket NSW Government Railway and Tramway Honour Board, Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, Wollongong Memorial Arch |
World War 1 Service
| 6 Sep 1915: | Involvement Private, 2473, 20th Infantry Battalion, Battle for Pozières , --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '13' embarkation_place: Sydney embarkation_ship: HMAT Ballarat embarkation_ship_number: A70 public_note: '' | |
|---|---|---|
| 6 Sep 1915: | Embarked Private, 2473, 20th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Ballarat, Sydney |
Help us honour Frederick Keith James Spinks's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.
Add my storyBiography contributed by John Oakes
Frederick Keith James SPINKS (Service Number 2473) was generally known as Keith, because his father, a farmer on the South Coast, was also Frederick. The son was born at Bodalla on 3rdJune 1896. He spent four years in the cadets at Wollongong as a youth, He joined the NSW Government Railways as a junior porter in February 1915. When he enlisted in the AIF at Liverpool in July 1915, after having been previously rejected once, he was being employed as a junior porter at the Figtree station. His friends gave him a farewell at a local hotel and presented him with a set of military brushes before he left for camp.
He was allotted to the 5th Reinforcements of the 20th Battalion. He was embarked HMAT ‘Argyllshire’ from Sydney on 30th September 1915 for the Middle East, and ‘taken on strength’ by the 20th Battalion at Tel-el-Kebir in January 1916.
In March he was sent to France. On 26th July 1916 he was reported missing in action. Although his family was informed of his death by his commanding officer and comrades, it was not until 1917 that the report that he was missing was officially corrected to ‘killed in action’. He had died in a charge at Pozières, together with another young railwayman from the South Coast, Edward Cawe, with whom he had enlisted. Neither has a known grave, but both are commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, and also on the Roll of Honour in St Michael’s Cathedral, Wollongong.
- based on the Australian War Memorial Honour Roll and notes for the Great Sydney Central Station Honour Board.
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