Service Details
- Branch of Service
- Army
- Conflict
- World War I (1914-1918)
- Date of Enlistment
- 06/10/1916
- Date of Discharge
- 02/07/1918
- Place of Enlistment
- Duntroon ACT
Personal Details
- Gender
- Male
- Place of Birth
- Cape Town, South Africa
- Address (at enlistment)
- Condamine Street, Manly NSW (previously Duntroon ACT)
- Occupation
- Cook
- Next of Kin
- Jane Maud Hansen (wife), Condamine Street, Manly NSW
Unit and Rank Details
- Service Number
- 3150
- Final Rank
- Private
- Final Unit
- 55 Battalion AIF
Notes
The South African born Joseph Hansen originally enlisted on 18 June 1915 but was rejected as medically unfit with piles. He served with the Home Service from August 1915 to October 1916 when he entered the Officer's Training School at Duntroon but did not complete the course and enlisted in the AIF. He embarked for overseas on 11 November 1916 and was taken on strength with the 55th Battalion on 30 April 1917. He received gun shot wounds to both legs at the Second Battle of Bullecourt on 13 May 1917. The big toe of his right foot was amputated and his left ankle and right tibia were fractured. He returned to Australia on 3 January 1918 and was discharged on 2 July 1918.
Hansen, his wife and their two sons moved to Campsie in Sydney after the war but she left the family in 1923 because he was "continually in and out of hospital". He later heard that she drowned at La Perouse. Hansen then married Margaret Jackson at St. John's Church in Reid on 3 June 1929. At the time he was described as a 44 year old painter living at Russell Hill (now the suburb of Campbell). Through the 1930s he worked as a cleaner at West Block and lived in Macquarie Street, Barton. He died at Batemans Bay on 2 November 1946 aged 62 years.
Description - height 5 feet 3 inches, weight 136 pounds, chest 34-36 inches, fresh complexion, grey eyes, dark brown hair, Church of England.
Sources
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)
ACT Electoral Rolls 1916 to 1967 http://canberraheritageportal.org/default.php
The Canberra Times - 1 June 1929, 18 November 1931, 3 March 1938, 4 November 1946