John McCall
June 1877 — 16 August 1939
John McCall (10‑76‑23)
Born in 1878 in Sydney he worked as a labourer before enlisting at the age of 37 in Sydney. He embarked in October 1915 and a few years of fighting in France and Egypt and periods of illness, he was wounded in action with a gun shot wound to the right knee.
Since he returned in 1919 he had travelled Queensland extensively and ended up in Rockhampton. He then was admitted to Dunwich from February to March in 1939. Then a month before he died he came down from Rockhampton to Wynnum in August 1939 and lived at the presbytery. No relatives in Australia but sister in England. Sadly, John was hit and killed by a train one night at Wynnum. The headline in one of the newspapers said,
‘Train victim was war pensioner. McCall served with the 15th battalion AIF on Gallipoli and in France’.
A large newspaper article spoke about the dangers of that crossing but the driver said his train has 3 lights and it was said there is an electric light at the crossing. The article then said, 'the inquest was closed'.
You might think that’s the end of the story, until you read his medical file. John's lungs were found to be very congested and eodematous with universal pleural adhesions in both lungs plus laceration at based of left lung. So, it appears he was struggling with lung disease.
J. McCall, one of the soldiers photographed in The Queenslander Pictorial, supplement to The Queenslander, 1915 - State Library of Queensland.