Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Francis Jounquay (1889-1960)

Known as "Pop" "Poppy" or "Frank" to his immediate family and friends was a kind and softly spoken man whose interests were simple and whose demenour unassuming. His family and friends loved him and knew of his kind nature and caring attitude and willingness to help those who were doing it tough.

When the War to end all Wars broke out he like many othe sinle men would have been caught up in the excitement of enlistment and the opportunity of seeing the world. Up to this point Frank had been born and bred within a small rural community of Taroom on the western edge of the Darling Downs in Queensland. His education would have been meagre by any comparison and his employment limited to rural activities such as droving and/ or property management and labouring.

As a single man of 26 years the opportunity to serve King and Country would have seemed a chance in a million to see the world beyond rural Queensland (in the Warrego). Like many young men of his age he volunteered in Toowoomba via the Military Recrutment Depot in October of 1915 and was accepted as being fit for service.

He commenced intitial training and was taken on strength into the First Field Company Engineers AIF, the unti that would see him serve in for the duration of the war. Sapper Frank Jounquay 6602 AIF left Australia for overseas duty on the 11/3/1916 and sailed as part of the Australian Army's reinforcements to Tel -el-Kabir Army camp in Alexandria for more intensive training prior to his deployment to England and then onto the Western Front France.

In November of that year he marched onto the front where he served his tour of duty. no doubt he saw his fair share of the trials, privations of battle and survival and yet through it all he was lucky to survive the horrors and suffering associated with this industrial scale violence we remember as the The First World War.

On the 13th October 1918 he applied for and was awarded the promotion of Lance- Corporal, in the field- and he continued to see out his duty until the wars end.

Frank returned to Australia 30th June 1919 and made his way back to his wife and family in the ensuing days and weeks.

No doubt Frank was changed by what he saw and endured in the war years. Family members record that he never really talked in much detail about his war experiences beyond musing that, 'the whole thing was bloody waste'. He preferred to focus on getting on with a lifee of hard work and provision for his family. It is as if he knew that to make sense of the ' waste of conflict and large scale war' one had a duty to one's comrades to live your life well because it had been at a cost. The cost of so many in a generation, making the supreme sacrifice for ideals of valour and mateship. How else did one make sense of industrial scale violence, maiming and murder? it wa to get on with one's life- no matter how simple and uncomplicated it might be- as a tribute made to so many who did not return.

Frank was not totally unscathed from his tour of duty. He had been exposed to "Mustard Gas" poisoning while in the trenches- and though it was only a partial exposure the effects were far reaching for his lungs and constitution in later years and this no doubt had its impact on his early death by heart attck in 1960.

He live a happy and uncomplicated life for the remainder of his years leading up to this date. He loved and was loved by his family: Frances (his wife), Darcy, Thelma, Priscilla and Daisy (his children) and his son-in-laws: Claude, Aubrey and Stacey.

Frank was a quiet man of integrity and honesty. A man who served his King and Country and more importantly lived a life of family as his way of making sense of the First World War. 

Lest We Forget