Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Douglas Wright resigned his position as a ganger on the Howard Shire Council to go and enlist. He was well built, 5 foot 11 inches and weighed almost 12 stone, but was almost 40 years of age.

His older brother Samuel James Wright had enlisted in 1914 with the 15th Battalion. By the time Douglas landed on Gallipoli in early September, his brother had been missing in action for three weeks. Sam was never found and months later was declared as “killed in action 8 August 1915.”

Douglas was killed during the fierce fighting at Pozieres on the 29 July 1916. His parents were Daniel and Sarah Anne Wright of Howard, Queensland.

#205  Douglas Walter WRIGHT   26th Battalion
 
Douglas Wright was born at Tinana near Maryborough to Daniel and Sarah Ann Wright. The family moved to Howard in time for Douglas to attend school. He would appear to have continued to live in the Howard area working as a labourer and serving for a year in the Wide Bay Infantry Regiment of the Citizens Forces. Douglas presented himself for enlistment at Maryborough on the 7th April 1915. He gave his age as 38 years and 4 months, although the date of birth recorded in the details on this webpage would place his age as 31. Douglas gave his address as Post Office Howard.
 
Douglas Wright was allocated as one of the first recruits into the 26th Battalion at Fraser’s Paddock Enoggera. The 26th Battalion was a sister unit to the 25th Battalion and both battalions were raised at Enoggera as apart of the 7th Brigade of the 2nd Division of the AIF. Training continued at Enoggera as groups of officers and men arrived from Tasmania to make up the battalion numbers. On 29th May the companies of the 26th Battalion that had reached full compliment in conjunction with the 25th Battalion and two squadrons of the 11th Light Horse marched from Enoggera into the city of Brisbane and down Queen Street to the applause of huge crowds.
 
On the 28th June, 19 officers, 533 other ranks, 11 vehicles and 5 bicycles were loaded onto the “Ascanius” at Pinkenba Wharf. The embarkation roll shows Douglas Wright as #205 in “A” Company. He had allotted 3/- of his daily pay of 5/- to either his mother or a bank account. The embarkation photo reproduced on this webpage shows Douglas with a rather spectacular moustache. The Ascanius sailed to Sydney where the men were offloaded to be billeted in the showgrounds for a few days while the last of the Tasmanian recruits could be taken on strength. When the full complement of the battalion re- embarked on 6th July, there were 12 men who were not present.
 
The Ascanius sailed directly to Suez and arrived in Alexandria in early August where they boarded trains for the staging camps at Zeitoun, arriving in camp on 5th August. A month later, the battalion was on the move again back to Alexandria where the battalion boarded a transport bound for the Gallipoli Peninsula. The battalion landed at night on the 11th September and went into bivouac at Taylor’s Hollow. It may have been at this time that Douglas learned of the death of his brother, Samuel, at Lone Pine the previous month.
 
The Gallipoli campaign had begun at the end of April 1915 with much promise but after a number of failed attempts to break the front open at Anzac during August, the whole situation had become a stalemate as far as movement was concerned. When the 26th arrived at Anzac in September, they were put to work in various fatigue duties, mainly carrying stores up to the firing line from the beach. Some men were attached to other units such as the Light Horse or Divisional Signals to continue dugout construction and trenchworks. This remained the pattern into October. In November, the 26th was put into the frontline for the first time as a complete battalion. The battalion relieved a battalion from the 6th Brigade at Russell’s Top where the activity had shifted underground incorporating tunnelling and mining (laying explosive charges to destroy the enemy tunnels). On 13th November, the war diary of the 26th Battalion recorded that Lord Kitchener, Minister for War in the British Government, visited the trenches at Russell’s top. This visit was to put an end to the Gallipoli adventure. Two weeks later, the commander of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Sir Ian Hamilton was sacked and orders were issued to abandon the fronts at Anzac and Cape Helles. The war diary also recorded a number of men going sick each day. On 25th November, Douglas reported to the 7thField Ambulance with dysentery. He was evacuated to the 13th Casualty Clearing Station at Mudros Harbour before being taken on to the Hospital Ship “Glennart Castle.” The hospitals in Egypt were unable to accommodate all the patients coming from the Gallipoli theatre and those suffering from disease, as opposed to wounds, were often sent to one of the many hospitals in Malta. Douglas was admitted to the Tigne Hospital in Malta on 3rd December where he spent time recovering and convalescing. On 7th January 1916, Douglas boarded another hospital ship, the “Essequibo”, for the sea voyage to Alexandria. It was originally planned that Douglas would be sent back to Australia to fully recuperate; what the authorities referred to as “a change.” His mother was informed that her son was returning but then the situation changed. Douglas was admitted to the #2 Australian Auxiliary Hospital at Heliopolis on the outskirts of Cairo on 11th January, and was then discharged to the Australian base at Zeitoun on 26th January.
 
While Douglas was recovering from dysentery, the entire Australian Force was evacuated from Gallipoli to Egypt where the size of the force was doubled by the creation of new divisions and battalions. This new force, made up of Gallipoli veterans and reinforcements from Australia, began training in earnest for an eventual deployment to France and the Western Front. Douglas returned to the 26th Battalion on 5th May 1916 and ten days later, embarked with the rest of the men of “A” Company bound for Marseilles.
 
The 26th, along with other battalions of the 7th Brigade of the 2nd Division AIF, was one of the first Australian units in France. The battalion travelled by train to northern France where they went into billets on farms in the region of Armentieres. Compared to the conditions on Gallipoli, the northern sector of the front presented the Australians with a somewhat idyllic scene. In the rear areas of the front, rural life went on as normal. Every small village offered soldiers on a pass cafes which served eggs, chips and sometimes beef or pork, as well as wine and beer. Even in the front line, fresh water was delivered via pipes and the battalion cookers could bring up a hot meal each day.
In June the battalion was moved further north to the Ypres salient in Belgium at Messines. This was a livelier sector of the front and the battalion had a more difficult time.
 
On 1st July 1916, General Douglas Haig, the British Commander in France launched his big push with the opening of the Battle of the Somme. The British battalions of Kitchener’s new army, mostly conscripts, suffered appalling losses; almost 60 000 casualties on the first day. The gains of the offensive were minimal but Haig was committed to pushing on. By the middle of July, all four Australian divisions in France and Belgium were moved south to the Somme where they would be thrust against the might of the German Armies. The primary objective for the Australians was a ridge on which nestled the village of Pozieres. The 1st Australian Division successfully took the village on the 24th July. The 2nd Division was charged with taking two lines of trenches and a blockhouse on the crest of the ridge above Pozieres.
 
The 26th moved up into the jumping off trenches on the night of the 29th July 1916 and awaited the artillery bombardment that would cut the wire in front of the enemy positions. Three battalions of the 7th Brigade, the 25th,26th and 28th charged uphill to their objective but the wire remained uncut. What was supposed to be a surprise attack had been observed by German outposts and heavy artillery was brought down on the troops as they struggled uphill. It had been decided that the attackers would wear discs of tinplate attached to their webbing so that they could be easily identified by aerial observers. Under the light of the German flares, the tin flashed providing ideal identification to the defenders.  The objective for the attack, a trench line marked as OG1 and a blockhouse on the site of a ruined windmill were never reached and after sustaining severe losses the brigade was forced to withdraw.
 
Pozieres was the first major engagement that the AIF experienced in the course of the war on the western front and it would have a profound influence on the survivors for the rest of their lives. Of the three battalions that charged the German trenches on 29th July, none escaped lightly. The 28th Battalion suffered 470 casualties, the 25th 343 and the 26th 297. Many of those casualties were men who had been killed in action but an equally large number were listed as missing, in some cases blown apart by high explosive. Douglas Wright was among the missing and it was not until almost 12 months later that a court of inquiry determined that he should be declared Killed in Action.
 
The battleground at Pozieres had been churned up as a result of extensive artillery bombardments during 1916 and would again be fought over twice more in 1918. The remains of many who fell in July and August 1916 were never recovered. Belatedly, the Australian Government resolved to build a permanent memorial to those who had lost their lives in France during the war and had no known grave. In 1938 the newly crowned King George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth unveiled the Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux. The limestone tablets bear the names of 11,000 Australians who perished in France during the great war and have no known grave. Douglas Wright is among those 11,000.
 
When medals were being distributed to the next of kin in the 1920s, Douglas’ father accepted the 14/15 stars, the Empire medals and the Victory medals awarded to his two sons. He was also granted a pension of 15shillings per fortnight.
 
A stone tablet on the site of the Pozieres Windmill reads in part:
The ruin of the windmill which lies here was the centre of a struggle on the Somme battlefield in July and August 1916. It was captured by Australian Troops who fell more thickly on this ridge than on any other battlefield of the war.