Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

06/01/1917

Date of Discharge

15/12/1919

Place of Enlistment

Goulburn NSW

Gender

Male

Date of Birth

05/01/1899

Place of Birth

Michelago NSW (Bobeyan ACT)

Address (at enlistment)

Bungendore NSW (previously Bobeyan ACT)

Occupation

Labourer

Next of Kin

Annie Woodfield (mother), Bungendore NSW

Service Number

6655

Final Rank

Private

Final Unit

18 Battalion

Queanbeyan RSL Wall of Remembrance, Crawford St, Queanbeyan NSW
Bungendore War Memorial arch, Gibraltar Street, Bungendore
Michelago District Roll of Honour World War 1, Ryrie Street, Michelago

Roy Woodfield was a great grandson of Alexander and Mary Crawford who settled in the Bobeyan valley in about 1843. Their daughter Elizabeth married a Joseph Woodfield but he died five years before Roy's father, Henry Woodfield, was born. Elizabeth Woodfield and her son appear to have moved to her parent's home in Bobeyan. Roy's older sister was born at Bobeyan in 1892 but by the time he was born in 1899 the Woodfields were living at Reedy Creek, in the upper Naas valley between Bobeyan and the Murrumbidgee River in the ACT. The Woodfields moved to Bungendore in about 1903.

Woodfield enlisted in Goulburn the day after his 18th birthday in January 1917. He embarked a month later with the 19th reinforcements for the 18th Battalion, arriving in England on 11 April 1917. He was sent to France in September 1917 and joined the 18th Battalion in the frontline just in time for the Battle of Menin Road near Ypres in Belgium on 20 September 1917. While in the trenches near Passchendaele in early October, Woodfield suffered exposure and was treated at the 7th Field Ambulance, rejoining his battalion five days later. Through 1918 the 18th Battalion fought in battles in the Somme valley at Hangard Wood and, most famously, at Mont St. Quentin on 31 August 1918. He returned to Australia in August 1919 and to Bungendore, marrying Lesley Smith of 'Lake View' (near Lake George) in November 1926. He served with the 2/5 Field Regiment in World War 2, giving his year of birth as 1903 and lowering his age by four years. Woodfield died in Sydney on 2 September 1970.

Description - height 5 feet 7½ inches, weight 132 pounds, chest 31-34 inches, fair complexion, brown eyes, light brown hair, physical development "fair", cut above the left ankle, mole near his left nipple, Church of England.

NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)
Matthew Higgins, 'Voices from the Hills. Places, People and Past Lifestyles in Namadgi National Park', KHA 1990 (p.168)
Daphne Curtis, 'Memories before Namadgi', 1999 (p.181, 182)
Monaro Pioneers Index - http://www.monaropioneers.com/pioneers.htm
Queanbeyan Age - 18 August 1916, 12 January 1917, 16 January 1917
Queanbeyan/ Canberra Advocate - 29 January 1917
Goulburn Evening Penny Post - 19 November 1926
Sydney Morning Herald - 3 September 1970