Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

24/10/1916

Place of Enlistment

Queanbeyan NSW

Gender

Male

Other Name(s)

Known as 'Jack'

Place of Birth

Queanbeyan NSW

Address (at enlistment)

Sydney NSW (previously Sutton Road, Amungula NSW)

Occupation

Labourer

Next of Kin

Son of Robert Francis Whittaker and Caroline Elizabeth (nee Gambell) Whittaker of Queanbeyan and Sutton NSW.

Burial Place

No known grave

Service Number

6390

Final Rank

Private

Final Unit

17 Battalion AIF

Died (killed in action) 31 August 1918, Mont St. Quentin, France

AWM Roll of Honour Memorial Panel 84, Canberra ACT
26 Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, France
Large stone tablet on outside of northern wall of St. John's Church, Reid ACT
World War 1 Memorial, corner of Lowe St and Farrer Place, Queanbeyan NSW
Queanbeyan RSL Wall of Remembrance, Crawford St, Queanbeyan NSW
Queanbeyan District Methodist Church Honor Roll (as Whittaker J)

The only evidence of Whittaker's connection with Canberra is the St. John's Church Roll of Honour. Whittaker was an Anglican and would have belonged to the Parish of St. John's as it included the Sutton district. He came from Amungula, which is on the Sutton Road just over the ACT border.

Whittaker joined the 17th Battalion in France during the Second Battle of Bullecourt in May 1917. He was wounded in September 1917 near Glencorse Wood during the Battle of Menin Road and again in May 1918 near Villers-Bretonneux.  On 31 August 1918 the 17th Battalion was part of the assault on Mont St. Quentin, above Peronne. He was killed by a shell that day and reportedly buried in Mericourt Wood near the village of Frise in France but his grave site is unknown.

Description - height 5 feet 8 inches, weight 146 pounds, chest 36-38 inches, medium complexion, blue eyes, brown hair, Church of England.

AWM Roll of Honour Database
AWM Red Cross File
AWM First World War Nominal Roll
AWM First World War Unit Embarkation Rolls
St. John the Baptist's Church, Canberra, Roll of Honour, in Frederick W. Robinson, Canberra's First Hundred Years, Sydney, W.C. Penfold, p. 63.
Peter Procter, Biographical Register of Canberra and Queanbeyan, Canberra, Heraldry and Genealogy Society of Canberra, 2001, p. 336.
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)
Queanbeyan Age - 24 September 1918