John Wright

From The Orange Wiki

WRIGHT, John

Service no: 212 [1]

Place of birth: Orange

Address: Hillston

Occupation: Labourer

Next of kin: James Wright (father), Orange, later Burnt Yards

Date of enlistment: 2 January 1916

Place of enlistment: Liverpool

Age at enlistment: 18

Fate: Embarked HMAT A72 Beltana, Sydney, 13 May 1916. Disembarked Devonport, 9 July 1916. Proceeded to France 22 November 1916. Wounded in action, sustaining a gunshot wound to the thigh, Belgium, 9 June 1917. Transferred to 2nd Casualty Clearing Station, France, 9 June 1917. Died of wounds, France, 9 June 1917.

Date of death: 9 June 1917

Buried: Trois Arbres Military Cemetery, Steenwerck, France, Plot 1, Row S, Grave 9

The Sliding Doors of John and Nathaniel Wright

War of any description is filled with stories of sliding doors. A soldier who was sick and missed being called up for a suicidal battle; a nurse who happened to be on duty when an injured man caught her eye; of general mis-judging weather conditions of the strength of their opposition. At the family level there are also those sliding doors; the brothers who fought together; the extended family members in the same trenches.

This is the story of two brothers from Burnt Yards. One survived the ravages of the Western Front, the other did not. It was the first week of 1916, and John Wright of Burnt Yards was looking for adventure. A labourer on the family farm, run by parents James and Sarah, John had just turned 18 the previous year. He asked his father, James, for permission to join Australia’s military forces just as news was coming through that they were retreating from the Gallipoli peninsula. James, in a decision that he must have come to regret, gave the necessary permission for his son to join the AIF.

John Wright stood just five foot three inches tall and would soon find himself part of the 36th Battalion. This battalion, raised in Newcastle largely from the efforts of then NSW Public Information Minister Ambrose Carmichael, the 36th (which contained many members from the State’s rifle clubs) would arrive in England in July of 1916.

Ahead of it, ahead of John, stood months of heavy training before the Battalion was deployed to the Western Front during the terrible winter of 1916-17.

During its first few months in the front lines, the 36th focused largely on repelling German attacks. However by June, as summer came to the Western Front, British authorities were planning a major assault around the French town of Messines. The battle would be started by a huge explosion under Hill 60 – an explosion that shook windows in London and one planted, in part, by some of John’s cousins (from the Lewis Ponds district) who were part of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company.

On the evening of 6 June, 1917, the 36th was moved into position where the troops were to be employed directly as either carriers (of munitions, the dead, the injured) or as soldiers. The battle began in the early hours of the June 7 with the Hill 60 explosion. Over the next two days the 36th kept up its work until on the evening of June 9 the whole battalion was moved in as relief to the 34th. During this changeover John Wright suffered a gunshot wound to the left thigh. In a clearing station, under fire and surrounded by the sounds of war, John Wright would die.

Months later, John’s family had to re-live the events that had taken their loved one. A package containing his personal belongings was returned to Burnt Yards with John, in his will, requesting they all went on to his sister, Dot. It included his wallet, letters sent by his family and friends to John during his time with the Army, photographs, a fountain pen, a comb, a notebook and an autograph book.

• This article was written by Shane Wright. It was first published in Eagle Eye: Cowra Family History Group Journal, Vol. 32, No. 2, November 2014, pp. 19-20.