Attested at Trentham Military Camp on 11 January 1916.

Embarked from Alexandria, Egypt on 26 July 1916 for Southampton, England diesembarking 7 August 1916.

D. Callaghan (Friend), C/- Post Office, Te Kuiti was listed as his New Zealand contact point, as apparently if the Next of Kin was not resident in NZ, this was required.

Before enlisting he worked as a labourer for Chas. McCracken of Tikotiko.

His grandson, Thomas Hardy, records the following details:

Most of the information given here has been obtained from John McCarthy's personal military file. Some of the information held on his army records is not true. His religion is stated to be Church of England but he was a Roman Catholic. His marital status is shown as Single, but he was marrried on 1 December 1900 at the Catholic Cathedral of Cork, Ireland to Ellen Goggin (1873-1962). She would have been his real Next of Kin (when embarking) and not his father. Ellen and John had three children: Mary Frances (1901-1973), Eugene Patrick (1903-1996) and David Francis (1905-1984).

Mr Hardy further records that he never met his grandfather and most of what he knows of him is from his personal military file. His only recorded crime while in the army was to go AWOL from the New Zealand Convalescent Hospital, Hornchurch, Essex from 5 pm on 2 April - 9.45 pm on 4 April, 1917. His punishment for this was the forfeiture of 3 days pay. After being declared unfit for War Service by the Medical Board, John embarked for New Zealand aboard the Ruahine from Liverpool on 16 November 1917.

After his army service John lived at various addresses in Auckland, including 46 Grey Street (1918), 208 Hobson Street (1920) and 62 Greys Avenue (1931). In 1999

John had 18 descendants, all of whom lived in England.

Grave: 1st NZEF. 12438 RFM. J McCarthy - Rifle Brigade - Died 7 January 1940

Falsified many details on attestation AWMM