Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Leonard Harold Francis Fradd was born on 21 Feb 1898 in Burra, (Hampton District) South Australia. He was schooled at Copperhouse and was the eldest of 8 children born to Francis and Mary Magdelean Fradd (nee Opitz)

The family moved to Broken Hill where they resided in Chapple Street, Convent Hill.Leonard was to have a fairly turbulent childhood; as detailed in the following 3 articles.

Recaptured in Broken Hill (Barrier Miner, Tuesday 10 Sep 1912)

Leonard Fradd a troublesome 14 year old boy has been up to mischief more than once.He was concerned in petty larceny at Broken Hill some months ago and was dealt with in the Children’s Court. He was ordered to be sent to Altona House a reformatory in Sydney. It was he and another boy who broke away from custody some time ago when under escort to Sydney. Fradd had the audacity to return to Broken Hill recently. He was identified in the street on Saturday by a constable and arrested. Under the Neglected Children and Juvenile Detention Act, boys under the age of 16 years are not to be imprisoned. Consequently Fradd was ordered to be held in the shelter at Silverton where he would be detained pertaining an escort to take him to Sydney to serve his term at Altona House Reformatory.

Broken Hill (The Register, Adelaide Monday 9 September 1912)

Leonard Fradd, aged 15, who escaped from custody in Melbourne early in July, while being conveyed from Broken Hill to Sydney, was rearrested in Broken Hill on Saturday. Fradd and another lad (Pearson) were convicted here in the Children’s Court for complication in several robberies and were being taken to the Reformatory in Sydney, when they made good their escape. The Melbourne police arrested them a few days later, but they again got away and nothing more was heard of either until Fradd was re-arrested yesterday. He did not like the thought of recapture, and gave the policeman a smart run. Fradd will again be removed to Sydney.

Quarter Sessions, Grafton (The Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday 19 November 1914)
West Maitland The Maitland Quarter Sessions were opened at the Courthouse, East Maitland on Tuesday before Judge Fitzhardinge, Mr A.S. Dawson was Crown Prosecutor. The list of cases was light, and for the first time in the history of the court all the accused pleaded guilty, a proceeding the rendered unnecessary the presence of any jurymen. Frederick Percy (16) and Leonard Fradd (16) for stealing from a dwelling at Telegraph Point were each sentenced to six months imprisonment. His Honour desired one to be imprisoned in Maitland and the other in Goulburn Gaol. (Leonard)
 
Leonard was sentenced to 6 months hard labour at the Goulburn Gaol in New South Wales and was committed about the 17th December 1914 at the tender age of 16 years and 10 months.


Leonard was listed as a Prisoner Discharged Free in the New South Wales Police Gazette in 1915. One wonders whether the pardon was a way of bolstering the A.I.F. ranks because Leonard soon joined the "colours" on the 11th December 1915 where he received 6 shillings per day.

The Nominal Roll listed Leonard in the 19th Infantry Battalion, 13th Reinforcements when he sailed aboard HMAT Ajana from Sydney on 05 July1915 to go and fight in The Great War.

Prior to this, he married Sylvia May Hall and they resided in "Cudgegong", Crimea Street, Parramatta.

Leonard was transferred to the 34th Battalion, spent time in the 9th Australian Machine Gun Company and finished with the 36th Battalion.

The 36th Battalion was raised at Broadmeadow Camp, in Newcastle, New South Wales in February 1916. 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. Upon arrival in England, 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.
Many soldiers fighting in the First World War suffered from trench foot. Leonard was no different. He was in and out of hospitals in Belgium and France with this condition. The infection of the feet was caused by cold, wet and insanitary conditions where men stood for hours on end in waterlogged trenches without being able to remove wet socks or boots. The feet would gradually go numb and the skin would turn red or blue. If untreated, trench foot could turn gangrenous and result in amputation. Trench foot was a particular problem in the early stages of the war particularly during the winter of 1914-15.

“If you have never had trench feet described to you. I will tell you. Your feet swell to two or three times their normal size and go completely dead. You could stick a bayonet into them and not feel a thing. If you are fortunate enough not to lose your feet and the swelling begins to go down. It is then that the intolerable, indescribable agony begins. I have heard men cry and even scream with the pain and many had to have their feet and legs amputated.”

Sergeant Harry Roberts, Lancashire Fusiliers, interviewed after the war.

Leonards War Record

Enlisted Casula Camp N.S.W. 11 Dec 1915
Embarked Sydney-HMAT A31 Ajana 05 Jul 1916
Disembarked Plymouth, UK 31 Aug 1916
Transferred from 34th Battalion to 19th Battalion (13th reinforcements) 20 Apr 1916
Transferred from 19th Battalion to 36th Battalion 29 Sep 1916
Overseas to France EX Southampton 22 Nov 1916
Admitted To Hospital Belgium-Dilated Heart Transferred to 3 ADRS 20 Jul 1917
Transferred to 10 Reinforcement Camp 21 Jul 1917
Re-joined Unit ex Hospital France 30 Jul 1917
Re-joined unit from Hospital (Belgium) 02 Aug 1917
Detached to 9th Australian Machinegun Company from 36th Battalion A.I.F. 10 Aug 1917
Detached to 9th AMGC (Field) 16 Aug 1917
To Hospital Sick from Attachment (Field) 08 Sep 1917
Admitted To Hospital Sick - Sth Ypres 26 Sep 1917
Admission Injury to toe nail to 45 Hos (France) 26 Sep 1917
Admission to 7 Con D 13 Oct 1917
Admission to B/D 02 Nov 1917
In From Hospital 16 Nov 1917
Marched Out To Unit 21 Nov 1917
Re-joined Battalion From S (Belgium) 22 Nov 1917
Re-joined Batt From Hospital Sick 22 Nov 1917
On Leave to UK 16 Jan 1918
Re-joined from Leave (Belgium) 03 Feb 1918
Detached to Tunnelling Company (Belgium) 08 Feb 1918
Re-joined from Tunnelling Company (Belgium) 24 Feb 1918
Admitted To Hospital Sick - France 27 Feb 1918
Re-joined Batt From Sick (France) 07 Mar 1918
Re-joined Batt From Sick- Gingivitis (France) 12 Mar 1918
Re-joined Battalion 16 Mar 1918
Wounded In Action - Gunshot Wound to RH (France) 04 Apr 1918
Invalided to UK- 2 Gen Hos 06 Apr 1918
Admitted to Southern General Hospital Portsmouth England 07 Apr 1918
Re-joined 34th Batt 02 Aug 1918
Proceeded Overseas FRANCE ex Longbridge Deverill via Folkestone 29 Aug 1918
Marched In ex England (Rouelles, France) 01 Sep 1918
Pte: M(?)/i: A.J.B.D. from UK wounded (Prev: 36th Bn) 01 Sep 1918
Marched Out To Front (Rouelles, France) 03 Sep 1918
T.O.S. H. Reinf 34 Bn x 36 Bn (Field) 05 Sep 1918
Returned Home to Australia Per S.S. Borda 11 May 1919
Retd. ‘Borda’ (TPE) Disc. 12/8/19 28 Jun 1919


During its service, the 36th Battalion suffered 452 killed and 1,253 wounded. Leonard was wounded and listed on the casualty list with a gunshot wound to the right hand on 4th April 1918.

Below the shattered ground that separated the British and German infantry on the Western Front in the First World War, an unseen and largely unknown war was raging, fought by miners, ‘tunnellers’ as they were known. They knew that, at any moment, their lives could be extinguished without warning by hundreds of tonnes of collapsed earth and debris.

Leonard, who was a Miner before joining the AIF, according to his Attestation Paper, was detached to a Tunnelling Company in Belgium for 3 weeks on the 08 February 1918.

War Diary 36th Battalion

These men were engaged in a desperate duel with their German opponents to destroy their opposing front lines by blowing mines, carefully placed in dark, treacherous tunnels under no man’s land. At the same time, the tunnellers worked to defend their own front lines from the German miners, intent on the same deadly task. It was a war within a war in its most literal sense.
The secret war culminated in the simultaneous blowing of nineteen huge mines, with a combined payload of almost 450,000 tonnes of high explosives, beneath the Messines Ridge.
Over 4,500 Australians served on the Western Front in three Australian tunnelling companies and their unique support unit, the Alphabet Company. Around 330 men did not return. The remains of most lie in carefully tended military cemeteries spread along the entire length of what was the British sector of the front, from the Belgian coast at Nieuport Bains in the north, to Bellicourt in the south.
Some lie on German soil where they died in captivity. Others are lost in the dark, silent embrace of the earth and whose resting place is known unto God.
Australian tunnelling companies took part in the battles of Fromelles, Arras, Messines, Passchendaele, Cambrai, and the defence of Amiens, Lys, and the famous last 100 days.