Personal information

Son of John Bagwell and Martha Marina Creagh, of Abbotsford, Victoria, Australia. Arthur Burton Creagh worked as motor mechanic and trick motorcycle driver, but was charged for stealing a motorcycle in July 1914 and sentenced to six months of hard labor. He joined the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 16 November 1915 and deserted while serving as Private in 8th Depot Squadron Seymour on 2 March 1916 in order to get aboard the Australian troopship Katuna as stowaway. He was only discovered after the ship had left Melbourne with the 15th Reinforcement Group for 4th Australian Light Horse Regiment and attached to them as Trooper he was sent into combat at the Western Front in France. Arthur volunteered to serve in the Royal Flying Corps on 1 January 1917 and was employed as Air Mechanic Second Class in the Southern Aeroplane Repair Depot at Farnborough until being discharged as medically unfit due to neurasthenia on 12 November 1917. He went to New York and joined the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force on 11 March 1918, serving as Private in 2nd Depot Battalion, 1st Central Ontario Regiment until being discharged on 26 September 1918 due a spine injury he had reportedly sustained when he was briefly captured by German soldiers at the Western Front. He returned to New York and worked as a seaman after the war. Arthur Burton Creagh participated in the first and second Antarctic expedition of Admiral Richard E. Byrd and was awarded the Congressional Silver Medal.