John “Jack” Cassidy was a grocer from North Ipswich who enlisted in August 1914. He played for the original Ipswich City soccer club the year he enlisted. Before he departed, Cassidy helped City beat Bundamba Rangers to claim the Ipswich and West Moreton Charity Shield.
Cassidy was attached to 9th Battalion for the Gallipoli campaign but was evacuated to Malta, then England after a gunshot wound to the knee and dysentery in June 1915. During this time, he also had bouts of diarrhoea and enteric fever. After a period of recuperation, he was sent to Serapeum, Egypt to join the 47th Battalion in April 1916. Cassidy was back in hospital in Heliopolis a month later with septic foot. He briefly returned to his unit in May, but within a week was back in hospital with myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle. Cassidy was then sent back to Australia and discharged.
Cassidy’s constant movements between his unit and hospitals meant his mail lagged behind, as explained by the Base Records office in October 1915. Cassidy’s father had written to ask why Cassidy had not received his mail whilst in hospital for several months. This was, “a disgraceful state of affair,” considering that, “he had been lying at an island like Malta for 4 months and cannot get a letter for his father, mother, sisters or brothers.” Cassidy’s father wanted the situation investigated. Captain Leah, of Base Records, replied, explaining that any letters had probably arrived in the Dardanelles after Cassidy had been evacuated, and went on to explain how the mail system worked.
An Imperial Force Postal Bureau had been set up in each capital city in Australia especially for troop mail. There were, Leah explained, processes for checking letters which had been incorrectly addressed and redirecting them to the correct place. A new Postal Corps in Alexandria was also being set up to improve the postal system in the future. There was, however, a caveat – “that mail matter for soldiers in the firing line is sent to the Field Post Office for distribution, and if an addressee had been wounded or becomes ill in the interim and is removed to a Base Hospital his mail must necessarily be some time in catching him up.” Two weeks before this reply, Cassidy had been moved to a new hospital in Netley in England. It is unknown whether his mail ever caught up to him.
Cassidy returned to Ipswich after the war where he resided in Booval for several decades and was often seen at events relating to St Gabriel’s Convent and neighbouring Catholic school. It is unknown whether Cassidy was again involved in local soccer, though given the number of his family who lived in the area it appears a younger relative was involved in the neighbouring Jacaranda Sports Soccer Club in the late 1930s. Cassidy passed away at Greenslopes Hospital in 1965.