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WORLD WAR I: 19 JULY 2016

Fromelles: One man’s story of Australia’s darkest day

On the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Fromelles, the ABC’s James Glenday tells the story of his family’s wartime hero.

Before the war, John Ralph “Jack” Wright was a piano tuner.

Jack worked for his family’s music business in Flinders Street, Melbourne.

The only son, he was six years older than his sister Violet, my great grandmother.

Like many other young men, he enlisted aged 22, celebrating his 23rd birthday shooting at Turks in the trenches of Gallipoli.

He wrote poems and love letters to his dear fiancee Jessie, and recounted his experiences on the ‘The Peninsula’, Lemnos, Heliopolis, Egypt and Tel el Kebir in a beautiful diary.

Then he went to France and disappeared.

For full story, visit http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-19/fromelles-australias-darkest-day/7639926

Based on information published by the ABC: http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin

Jack Wright ... his family will never know exactly how the yound soldier died.