Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

28/02/1916

Place of Enlistment

Riverstone NSW

Gender

Male

Place of Birth

Shoreditch, London, England

Address (at enlistment)

Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT

Occupation

Transport driver. Employed at Royal Military College, Duntroon, as a groom from 9 October 1911 to 6 March 1916.

Next of Kin

Son of Joseph Morgan Mines and Catherine Mines, brother of Miss Norah Mines, 66 Broke-road, Queen's-road, Dalston, London, England

Burial Place

Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery, Fouilloy, France, grave 12.E.6

Service Number

2450

Final Rank

Driver

Final Unit

55 Battalion AIF

Died of wounds received near Proyart, France on 21 August 1918, aged 37 years

AWM Roll of Honour Memorial Panel 161, Canberra ACT
Large stone tablet on outside of northern wall of St. John's Church, Reid ACT

Joseph Mines was an Englishman who began working as a driver at the Royal Military College in 1911 and was also a member of the original RMC band. He enlisted at Duntroon on 28 February 1916 and served with the 55th Battalion in France and Belgium from February 1917 during the attack on Doignies (April 1917), at the Second Battle of Bullecourt (May 1917) and at Polygon Wood (in September 1917). In early 1918 his battalion fought at Villers-Bretonneux and Morlancourt in the Somme before taking part in the Battle of Amiens in August 1918. As the AIF pushed the Germans back towards the Hindenburg Line, Mines died from shell wounds received on 21 August 1918 near Proyart, east of Villers-Bretonneux. There is no Roll of Honour Circular for this man. The AWM Roll of Honour gives his age at the time of his death as 37 years even though his attestation form states that he was 31 years old when he enlisted in 1916.

Description - height 5 feet 4½ inches, weight 186 pounds, chest 35-37½ inches, dark complexion, brown eyes, black hair, Church of England, scar on right buttock, rose tattoo on his right forearm, anchor tattoo on the back of his left forearm.

AWM Roll of Honour Database
AWM First World War Unit Embarkation Rolls
Ross Howarth, 'Civilians employed at the Royal Military College of Australia, Duntroon, from 1911 to 1931', RMC Duntroon, November 2000
C.D. Coulthard-Clark, 'Duntroon: The Royal Military College of Australia 1911-1986' (photo p.83)
Rex Cross, 'Bygone Queanbeyan', 1980
Our Queanbeyan 'Boys' No.4, Howard & Shearsby, Yass (postcard)
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)