Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

17/09/1914

Date of Discharge

09/06/1920

Place of Enlistment

Sydney NSW

Gender

Male

Date of Birth

26/12/1894

Place of Birth

Adelaide, South Australia

Address (at enlistment)

Neutral Bay NSW (previously Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT)

Occupation

Student

Next of Kin

Winifred A. Fox (mother), Manly NSW

Final Rank

Captain

Final Unit

13 Battalion AIF

Fox was a great grandson of William Phillips, an early settler in Adelaide. His father, Arthur Aloysius Fox, had been a member of the South Australian Legislative Assembly before marrying Winifred Phillips in 1893. He was a colleague of Charles Kingston (after whom the suburb of Kingston is named) and she was a friend of Sr. Mary McKillop. Fox entered the Royal Military College, Duntroon on 10 March 1913 but was discharged from RMC in December 1913 because of unsatisfactory progress with his studies.

He enlisted soon after the war began and served on Gallipoli with the 13th Battalion where he developed dental problems, dysentery and influenza. By November that year, having rejoined his unit on the peninsula, he was promoted to Lieutenant and then to Captain early in 1916 after the AIF had been evacuated to Egypt. Fox arrived in France in June 1916 and the following month he and his men entered the battle at Pozières. On 14 August 1916 the 13th Battalion were part of an attempt to capture the heavily fortified German position at Mouquet Farm, to the west of Pozières. Fox was severely wounded in the buttocks during the attempt and captured by the Germans. He became a prisoner of war and was interned firstly at Gutersloh, Germany and then Genfangenenlager Strohen, Germany. In late 1917 he was moved to Le Grand Chalet Rossiniere in Switzerland and was finally repatriated to England in December 1918. Fox was married in London a year later and after he returned to Australia in February 1920 it was found that he had tuberculosis in the right lung and other respiratory ailments. He served in World War 2 with the 13th Field Regiment at which time he was a farmer in South Australia. He died in South Australia in 1978.

Description - height 5 feet 9½ inches, weight 150 pounds, chest 32-36 inches, fair complexion, brown eyes, brown hair, Church of England.

Colonel J.E. Lee, 'Duntroon: The Royal Military College of Australia 1911-1946', 1952
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)
Advertiser (Adelaide) - 10 January 1950 (obituary for his mother, Winifred Fox)