John Mead Kernick (SN 445) was born in Ballarat where he was employed as a farrier at the time of his enlistment on 24th August 1914. The 20 year embarked from Melbourne with the 8th Battalion in October on board the Benalla. Although his service record doesn't detail it, it is likely that he took part in the landing at Gallipoli where he served until the evacuation at the end of 1915, interrupted only by occasional bouts of diarrhoea which required treatment in Lemnos. In April 1916, he landed in France where he was transferred to the 1st Pioneer Battalion. In August that year, he was briefly hospitalised with shell shock but appears to have survived the rest of the war relatively unscathed with only occasional visits to hospital for various minor ailments interrupting his service. Just a month before the end of the war, Lance Sergeant Kernick embarked for Australia on board the Port Sydney in October 1918 but the date of his discharge from the AIF is not recorded.

Lucas’s Staffs Appreciation of Brave Men, the original Avenue register, records his name as John A. Kernick