Enlistment Address

Coonamble NSW

Service Number

1642A

Unit

45th Battalion

Comment

Tooraweenah Kookaburra

Fate

RTA 18.7.1919

Information

Private Hilton Keegan was a 22 year old labourer of Coonamble when he and his brother, Herbert enlisted on January 12, 1916 at Tooraweenah and marched to Bathurst with the Kookaburra Recruitment March.  Hilton was born in Warren, NSW to James and Esther Keegan. Hilton’s wife, Revinus Keegan of Wee Waa, NSW was his next of kin. The medical examination described him as 5’6” tall, 140lbs, chest 35”-37”, dark complexion, blue eyes, dark brown hair, a scar on his right temple and his religion was Roman Catholic.

Hilton embarked from Sydney on board HMAT Ceramic on April 14, 1916 with the 45^th Battalion and his brother, Herbert Keegan 1643. They trained further in Egypt and England and arrived in France in August 1916 to face the bleak winter in the Somme.

In August 1917, around Passchendaele, Hilton suffered a gunshot wound which fractured his right arm. He was one of 32 men wounded and 5 men were killed in the action. He was sent to England for treatment and convalescence at the Military Hospital in Canterbury and the 3^rd Auxiliary Hospital in Dartford. Hilton rejoined his unit in France in December 1917 and remained with the 45^th Battalion during the remainder of the war. He was sick in hospital in France from March to June1919, and began his journey home to Australia on July 18, 1919 on the HT Takada, arriving in Melbourne on September 7, 1919. Hilton and his brother, Herbert were discharged in Sydney on October 20, 1919. He died in 1965 in the Kiama district.

He was issued the British War Medal