Following his enlistment as a private, Woods was allotted as a reinforcement to the 48th Battalion, a mixed South Australian-Western Australian unit, part of the 12th Brigade, 4th Division. It was already serving on the Western Front in France and Belgium. After two months training at Blackboy Hill, Woods embarked with the rest of his reinforcement draft on at Fremantle on 23 December 1916. He disembarked at Devonport in the UK on 16 February 1917, and joined the 12th Training Battalion at Codford on Salisbury Plain. During this training period, he was hospitalised with mumps and then with bronchitis and pneumonia. Recovered, he completed his training, embarked at Southampton for France, and joined the 48th Battalion on 12 September.
