MURRAY, John (1896-1917).JPG)
J Murray (War Service).
Born on 1 February 1896 at Wollongong, NSW, the son of John Murray and Florence nee Bessell, of Watson's Bay, he entered Geelong College in February 1910, continuing until December 1912. He afterwards went on to Sydney Grammar School from 10 January 1913 until September 1914.
He enlisted (559) in the AIF on 17 August 1914 and left Australia with the 1st Division under General W T Bridges, as a member of D Company, 5 Battalion, on
HMAT A3 Orvieto on 21 October 1914. He was subsequently wounded four days after the Landing at Gallipoli, by a bullet wound to the scalp, necessitating evacuation to HS Seean Chow. After an operation for appendicitis he was not permitted to return to the front, but was given clerical work at a base in France until June 1917. He did, however, return to his unit on 8 September 1917.
Lance Corporal Murray was killed shortly afterwards during the advance on the Merrin Road on 20 September 1917, when he was blown up by a shell.
The battalion lost three officers, three sergeants and 87 other ranks that day at Glencorse Wood. Murray was buried at Verbick Farm, 100 yards east of Glencorse Wood, and reinterred at war's end in Hooge Crater Cemetery, Zillebeke-Grave X.A.6.
Hooge Crater Cemetery was begun by the 7th Division Burial Officer early in October 1917. It contained originally seventy-six graves, in Rows A to D of Plot I, but was greatly increased after the Armistice when graves were brought in from smaller cemeteries in the area, and from the battlefields of Zillebeke, Zantvoorde and Gheluvelt. There are now 5,922 Commonwealth servicemen of the Great War buried or commemorated in this cemetery, 3,578 of the burials are unidentified but special memorials record the names of a number of casualties either known or believed to be buried among them, or whose graves in other cemeteries were destroyed by shell fire. The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.
After Pozieres, 5 Battalion fought at Ypres in Flanders, then returned to the Somme for winter. In 1917, the battalion participated in the operations that followed up the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line, and then returned to Belgium to join the great offensive launched to the east of Ypres.
Sources: Based on an edited extract from Geelong Collegians at the Great War compiled by James Affleck. p78 (citing Pegasus December 1918; Australian War Memorial; Commonwealth War Graves Commission; Photo - Pegasus December 1918).