On 6 September 1917 the Geraldton Guardian reported that a “recent casualty list contained the name of Private Joseph Albert Faragher, of England, amongst those killed in action. Faragher enlisted from Geraldton, and was a well known Soccer football player.”
It is unclear when Faragher arrived in Australian but before the war he had settled as a farmer in Moonyoonooka and made appearances for the local team. Corporal Faragher enlisted in March 1916 and saw action on the Western Front where he received a gun shot wound to the knee in February 1917 before finally being killed in action on 2 August 1917 at the age of 26.
On 5 March 1917 The Geraldton Express published a letter written writing to Miss Ada Shield before his first wounding:
I am now taking the chance of writing you; one never knows when the next will arise. When I wrote last I thought that I was in for a few days’ rest, but had to go in the trenches the following day, Christmas Day. No doubt you can understand what a Christmas Day it was — tin dog and bread for dinner. We did have a bit of plum-duff for tea. I was also in the trenches for New Year’s Day. It was about the hottest day I have put in. I was dodging shells all day. We came out yesterday for a spell, which I was badly needed. I went to bed at dinner-time yesterday and didn’t wake up until eight this morning, so I am feeling first-rate now. I got a letter from you while in the trenches. I could hardly hear the Huns’ shells going over while I was reading it. I think we have the Huns well beat now. They are very frightened of us. It is very rare they raid us, and when they do they don’t fight long before they give in. Our artillery is giving them no rest; they bang away at them all day. Very often one can see a few Huns or pieces of them flying in the air. It makes one laugh at times to see us dodging the German shells. One bloke would sing out, ‘Here’s one coming,’ and we would lie flat down in the trench before he had finished saying it, very often up to our eyes in mud. I suppose you would like to know what we do at nights when out of the firing line. There isn’t really anywhere to go. There is one picture show. I go one night, and the rest is spent knocking about the town, or what was once a town. It is a fairly big place, but there is hardly a building standing. It is only a few miles behind the firing line, and always under shell-fire. The Huns have a great fancy for knocking down the churches. There isn’t one left standing. I have not received any of the parcels you sent me. It seemed so hard; all the other chaps had something, poor me nothing. But it can’t he helped; things like that will go astray. My sister sent me a parcel from England; I never got that either. With kind regards to all.