Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

18/08/1914

Date of Discharge

16/12/1919

Place of Enlistment

Melbourne, Victoria

Gender

Male

Date of Birth

06/02/1894

Place of Birth

Ballarat, Victoria

Address (at enlistment)

Russell Street, Camberwell, Victoria (previously the Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT)

School(s) Attended

Camberwell Grammar

Occupation

Soldier

Next of Kin

Colonel John Goodwin, Russell Street, Camberwell, Victoria

Final Rank

Captain

Final Unit

1 Division Artillery AIF

Goodwin was the son of Colonel John Thomas Hill Goodwin, who succeeded Charles Scrivener as Commonwealth Surveyor General, served as Federal Capital Commissioner in the 1920s and after whom Goodwin Homes is named. Goodwin entered the Royal Military College, Duntroon in the first intake of cadets on 22 June 1911 but was discharged from the college in December 1912. In October 1914 he was appointed as a Lieutenant in the Royal Australian Field Artillery and shortly after embarked for Egypt with the Headquarters, 2nd Field Artillery Brigade. The AWM image shows Goodwin with a group of officers in front of the Sphinx in Egypt in 1915. Goodwin served with the 6th and 8th batteries during the Gallipoli campaign until attached to the Royal Navy as an aeroplane observer in November 1915. On 20 December 1915, as the Anzacs evacuated Gallipoli, Goodwin was the observer on a flight over Gallipoli when his plane's engine failed and had to land. He was taken as a prisoner to Constantinople (Istanbul) and interned at Afion Kara Hissar before being repatriated to Egypt three years later. Goodwin was Adjutant at RMC from 1931 to 1936 when the college was based in Sydney. He served in World War 2 as commanding officer of the 2/12th Field Regiment but was killed during an air raid in New Guinea on 25 October 1943 and buried in Finschhafen War Cemetery (grave 7, row B, plot C).

Description - height 5 feet 6¾ inches, chest 35 inches, Church of England.

Colonel J.E. Lee, ‘Duntroon: The RoyalMilitaryCollege of Australia 1911-1946’, 1952
The Duntroon Society, ‘The First Class’, Newsletter 2/2011
AWM collections Record: P03954.001. A04060.001
NAA RecordSearch – Series B883 (Second Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1939-1947)