JOHNS, Graham
(Service number 23/1082)
| First Rank | Rifleman | Last Rank | Private |
|---|
Birth
| Date | 24 December 1888 | Place of Birth | Waimate |
|---|
Enlistment Information
| Date | Age | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Address at Enlistment | Beach Road, Ashburton | ||
| Occupation | Plumber | ||
| Previous Military Experience | |||
| Marital Status | Single | ||
| Next of Kin | Frederick JOHNS (father), 54 Beach Road, Ashburton | ||
Military Service
| Served with | NZ Armed Forces | Served in | Army |
|---|
Embarkation Information
| Body on Embarkation | New Zealand Rifle Brigade, 1st Battalion | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Unit, Squadron, or Ship | D Company | ||
| Date | 9 October 1915 | ||
| Transport | Maunganui or Tahiti or Aparima or Navua or Warrim00 | ||
| Embarked From | Wellington | Destination | |
| Other Units Served With | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Last Unit Served With | Machine Gun Corps | ||
Military Awards
| Campaigns | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Service Medals | |||
Award Circumstances and Date
No information
Prisoner of War Information
| Date of Capture | |
|---|---|
| Where Captured and by Whom | |
| Actions Prior to Capture | |
| PoW Serial Number | |
| PoW Camps | |
| Days Interned | |
| Liberation Date |
Death
| Date | 24 April 1966 | Age | 77 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Place of Death | Mangere | ||
| Cause | |||
| Memorial or Cemetery | Papatoetoe Cemetery, Auckland | ||
| New Zealand Memorials | |||
Biographical Notes
Graham Johns was born on 24 December 1888 at Waimate, the fifth son of Frederick and Elizabeth Anne Thomas (née Hosking) Johns. Frederick and Elizabeth had married in Cornwall, England, in 1875. Shortly afterwards they emigrated with Elizabeth’s widowed mother. They landed at Timaru and travelled to Waimate, South Canterbury, where they spent some years. Graham was educated at Hampstead School, the family having moved to Ashburton in the mid 1890s. He received a prize for Standard II proficiency and for Standard the following year for proficiency and attendance. In Standard VI he received proficiency and special mention. Graham was also one to give recitations.
.
Graham Johns was a plumber, residing at home in Ashburton, when he enlisted. Rifleman G. Johns embarked at Wellington with the New Zealand Rifle Brigade on 9 October 1915. He served as a rifleman in Egypt until 21 February 1916, when he was transferred to a private with the New Zealand Machine Gun Corps, serving in Egypt, France and England until November 1916, when he was classified as unfit. He embarked at Avonmouth on 14 July 1917 to be invalided home by the “Marama. [See Cenotaph Database for more detail.] .
Graham married Elizabeth Eleanor Knox in February 1918. Sadly, Eleanor died on 4 December 1918 at Ashburton, of pneumonia. Graham married secondly Lillian Catherine Donn in March 1920 at Ashburton. Lillian died in 1951 and was buried at Christchurch. Graham Johns died on 24 April 1964 at Mangere and was buried in the Papatoetoe Old Cemetery. His brother Harvey Johns also served in World War One and also came home by hospital ship. Another brother, Newman Johns, enlisted in 1918.
Sources
Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [05 March 2021]; NZ BDM Indexes (Department of Internal Affairs) [17 February 2021]; Papatoetoe Cemetery headstone transcription [05 March 2021]; Ashburton Guardian, 24 December 1897, 1898, 1901 (Papers Past) [05 March 2021]
External Links
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Researched and Written by
Teresa Scott, SC branch NZSG
Currently Assigned to
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Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.
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