Up-Dated Story for J.R.Wright.

Up-Dated Story for J.R.Wright.

Jonathon Wright 1713. was born at the Pinns cottages Needham Rd Gazaley 10 th April 1867 to George and Harriet Wright , described as a Shepperd. Moved to West Stow 1881. aged 13 , living with sister Ellen age 9 John 16 Frank 1 .

He joined the British Army 1884 as a boy soldier in the Suffolk/Cheshire Regiment. Pay slips from the Army put him in Cairo during the war in Sudan,.He served for 6 years .

A Newspaper story said he served in the Boer war to. I found a possible match in British Army records ,But no record in Australia

In 1890 s. he emigrated to Australia and went tobacco farming at Bonshaw Nsw near Texas Qld.

He married Elizabeth Jane Hill/Daley , the had 8 children prior to him joining the Australian Army in 1916 at Inverell Nsw.He Joined the 1st AIF on 29th Feb 1916 At Inverell Nsw . He took part in the 2nd contingent Kurrajong Recruitment march.

He was posted to the 36 th Battallion and went to France and took place in all the major battles , he transferred to the 33 rd Battalion in April 1918 after heavey casualities in the 36 th.

He got arteriosclerosis in his legs and was sent home 24 August 1918.After the battle ae Le Hamel.

He was Very lucky to have survived the WW 1 .When he got home he was awarded 2 soldier settler farms , one being 500 acres at Texas with 3 other soldiers and one at Gympie, where some of the family moved to and carried out a dairying enterprise ,Not sure when they were sold or if any of the family were given the farms?

He lived to age 91 and after a very long and varied and eventful life he died in 1957 and is buried at Texas cemetery. Qld.

The 36th Battalion was raised at Broadmeadow Camp, in Newcastle, New South Wales in February 1916. The bulk of the battalion's recruits had been enlisted as a result of a recruiting drive conducted amongst the rifle clubs of New South Wales by the Minister for Public Information in the New South Wales government, Ambrose Carmichael. Thus, the battalion became known as "Carmichael's Thousand". Carmichael led by example and enlisted as well, serving in the battalion as a captain.

In one of the Battalions earliest engagements Col Simpkins was killed in action by a bombshell that hit the command post Jan 1917. Not known how close by Jonathan was ,considering he was a batman to the officers..?

In Belgium he got a small whiff of gas and went to hospital for a short while.

_______________________

Jonathon Wright 1713 was allocated to the 36th Battalion 1st Reinforcements (Carmichael's 1,000)

He left for England on board the troopship HMAT Beltana which departed Sydney on 13th May 1916. The convoy arrived at Plymouth on 9th July 1916 after stopping off at Albany : Fremantle : Durban : Dakar,The 3 other ships to take the 9th Brigade (33:34:35:36 Battalions) to England .HMAT Marathon 33rd : HMAT Arglyshire 34th : HMAT Bennala 35th Battalion.

On arrival the 36th Battalion traveled by train to Amesbury in Wiltshire where they off loaded from the train and marched the several miles to Larkhill camp. Jonathan was admitted to sick bay just after arriving in England.

The 36th was now part of the newly formed 3rd Division AIF. 9th Brigade comprising of the 33;34;35;36;th Battalions plus the 9th Light Trench Mortar Battery, 9th Machine Gun Company, and the 12 field company Engineers and assorted medical support and medical units.

They spent 5 months at Lark Hill training for trench warfare , They visited Stonehenge on the SaIlsbury plain on some R&R. I would hope that Jonathan got a chance to visit his brothers and sisters while he was in England .

The 36th Btn proceeded to France along with most of the newly formed 3rd Div AIF ON 22nd November 1916.

They embarked from Southampton docks England after marching from Lark Hill to Durrington and caught a train to near the dock . They landed at Le-Havre France ,where they had a very difficult cold and wet 6 mile march to a rest camp at Sanvic, They stayed here until 24th November ,when they marched out to a railway station where they were crammed into cattle wagons marked *Hommes* People. They arrived at Balieul 48 hours latter , just behind the front line.Then moved to Steenwerck

The 36th was moved into the front line at Armentires, 27th November and came under artillery fire immediately, suffering several causalities . It was a bitterly cold winter that year in Europe .

They were in and out of the trenches in 8 day rotations for 5 months.Where their job was to hold the line at Square Farm sector, They carried out several raids during this time.

The 36 th was sent to Messines Ridge Belgium during the 2nd week of may to prepare for the massive attack there on 7 June 1917. This was to be the 36th first major battle, they were billeted at Nieppe , near Ploegsteert Wood Ypres . The objective was to take the high ground from the 5th Bavarian Div and the 4th German div 6th Army corps. Which they did admirably but at a great loss of men .

Jonathon was with the battalion for this massive attack on Messines Ridge on 7th June 1917, the 3rd Australian Division was at the southern end of the Ridge. The attack commenced at 3.10 am with the detonation of 19 huge mines that had been dug under the German positions. The explosions were heard as far away as London , Hill 60 being the biggest , 2 mines didnt go off and are still there today. The Germans suffered massive causalities from the bombs. Jonathon came away from this battle physically unscathed.

His next battle was at Passchendale where he once again survived when many didnt.

On 27th July he reported sick to the 11th Australian field hospital from where he was transferred to a divisional rest station , before rejoining his unit on 3rd August 1917. On 30 August the 36th moved into the Broodseinde Ridge

Passendaele area and took part in the 3rd Battle of Ypres from mid September to mid October , It was an extremely bad battle for Aussie troops ,taking large causalities once again, It was very wet and muddy . Jonathon made it through once again physically uninjured.

He was given a 14 day leave on 4th January to the 18th Jan. I wonder what he got up to then ? I hope he went to England to see his family.

In March the 36th was rushed to The Somme and was used a mobile unit being thrown into any line where it needed strengthening , they succeeded in all these fights.

He was with the Battalion for the the first battle of Villers-Bretonneux which took place on the 4/5th April 1918. This was the 36th finest hour. When Col Moreshead saw that the Germans had broken through the British lines he rushed the 36th forward, they had been resting behind the line. *He said send everyone including the cooks, quartermasters and even the Batmen*, <Which was Jonathon R Wright 1713. The 36th found the Germans in some low ground where they were surging forward , and 36th had some high ground and they shot over 3,000 of them , thus saving Villers-Bretonneux .The 36th s war diary stated that Moreshead ordered The batmen and Quarter master Sgts to rush belts of ammo up to a machine gun crew near a haystack that was running out of ammo and the break through was endangering the AIF . Those men rushed forward and delivered the ammo, and this machine gun crew was instrumental in stopping the breakout . Moreshead praised them for their excellent work that day .They also carried back some wounded to the aid-post

He was there for the defense of Villers-Bertonneux until the 9th Brigade was relieved by the British army units on 18th April who then lost the Village, and then re-captured by the 9th 13th and 15th AIF Brigades, inc John Delaney & Michael Hoar, and other family members in the 2nd Battle of Villers-Bretonneux .from 25th April.

BATTALION HISTORY:

The battalion had to wait until the emphasis of British and Dominion operations switched to the Ypres Sector of Belgium in mid-1917 to take part in its first major battle; this was the battle of Messines, launched on 7 June. With the 9th Brigade held in reserve during the battle for Broodseinde Ridge on 4 October, the 36th's next major battle was around Passchendaele on the 12th. Heavy rain, though, had deluged the battlefield, and thick mud tugged at the advancing troops and fouled their weapons. The 36th secured its objective but with open flanks and ineffective artillery support, was forced to withdraw.

For the next five months the 36th alternated between periods of rest, training, laboring, and service in the line. When the German Army launched its last great offensive in the spring of 1918, the battalion was part of the force deployed to defend the approaches to Amiens around Villers-Bretonneux. It took part in a counter-attack at Hangard Wood on 30 March, and helped to defeat a major drive on Villers- Bretonneux on 4 April.

The fighting to defeat the German offensive had exacted a heavy toll upon the 3rd Division, and the 9th Brigade in particular. Reinforcements from Australia were dwindling and thus it was decided to disband one of the 9th Brigade's battalions to reinforce the other two. The 36th was the battalion selected after its heroic action in April 1918, in the defense of Villers Bretonneux .The 36th took heavy causalities along the Amiens Road in this decisive battle. In what one of the battalion's officers called an "unselfish act" the 36th disbanded on 30 April 1918. Jonathan was TOS to 33rd Battalion company B and he continued on in the front lines for the next 4 months, He was at Amiens and Le Hamel battles where he started to have health issues with his legs . He was sent to a medical camp and was diagnosed with arteroscerlosis and was dicharged from duty because of this and his age on 18 August and began his journey home

__________________________________________________________________________________

World War I

The 36th Battalion was raised at Broadmeadow Camp, in Newcastle, New South Wales, in February 1916 as part of an expansion of the First Australian Imperial Force, which occurred after the Gallipoli Campaign.[1] The bulk of the battalion's recruits came from New South Wales rifle clubs and along with the 33rd, 34th and 35th Battalions, it formed the 9th Brigade, attached to the 3rd Division. The battalion left Sydney shortly on 13 May 1916, bound for the United Kingdom. Arriving in early July 1916, the battalion spent the next four months in training, before taking up a position on the Western Front on 4 December 1916, in time to sit out an uncomfortable winter in the trenches.

Over the course of the next six months the 36th Battalion was mainly involved in only minor defensive actions and it was not until 7 June 1917 the battalion fought in its first major battle, at Messines. After this the battalion participated in the attack on Passchendaele on 12 October 1917. During this battle, the battalion managed to secure its objective, however, as other units had not been able to do so, the battalion had had to withdraw as its flanks were exposed to German counter-attacks and there was a lack of effective artillery support. For the next five months the 36th Battalion alternated between periods of duty manning the line and training or labouring in the rear areas in Belgium, before it was moved south to the Somme to help blunt the German advance during their last-ditch effort to win the war as part of the Spring Offensive of 1918.[1] During this time they were deployed around Villers-Bretonneux in order to defend the approaches to the strategically important town of Amiens, taking part in a counter-attack at Hangard Wood in late March before beating off a concerted German attack on Villers-Bretonneux on 4 April, where the battalion suffered greatly when the Germans attacked with gas.

This was to be the 36th Battalion's last contribution to the war, as it was disbanded on 30 April 1918 in order to reinforce other 9th Brigade units. The earlier campaigns had severely depleted the AIF in France and since 1916 the flow of reinforcements from Australia had slowly been decreasing as the war dragged on and casualties mounted. The refusal of the Australian public to institute conscription had made this situation even worse, and in late 1918 it became clear that the AIF could not maintain the number of units it had deployed in France and it was decided to disband three battalions—the 36th, 47th and 52nd—in order to reinforce others. During its service, the battalion suffered 452 killed and 1,253 wounded.[1] Members of the battalion received the following decorations: one DSO, 11 MCs, three DCMs, 34 MMs with four bars, three MSMs, and 13 MIDs. In 1927, the 36th Battalion received eight battle honours for its involvement in the fighting on the Western Front.