Sergeant MORAN, Bartholomew John, 28th Battalion

Bartholomew John ‘Jack’ Moran was the son of John, a coachman, and his third wife Agnes nee Osborne. John was a widower twice over and had several older children. Jack however, born in Queanbeyan, New South Wales in October 1888, was Agnes’ only child, as John died when Jack was just a few months old. His passing was noted in the Goulburn Evening Penny Post of 16 February 1889, and he was remembered as “one of the best ‘whips’ in the district.”

Agnes and Jack then moved to Western Australia and by 1910, Jack was living in East Perth and working as a labourer.

In 1913 he married Lucy Lavan Sherlock and they lived with Agnes at 97 Tower Street, West Leederville, before moving to 128 May Street, Bayswater. Their daughter Lucy was born in 1914.

On 28 August 1915 Jack enlisted in Perth, aged 26. At the time, his occupation was a blacksmith’s striker, assisting a blacksmith working with iron, using a furnace, anvil and hammer; a job that required quite a bit of physical power and stamina!

After training at Blackboy Hill camp, Jack embarked at Fremantle on 18 January 1916 aboard HMAT Medic, with the 7th Reinforcements to the 28th Battalion, arriving 15 March. Troops in Egypt were either newly arrived, like Jack, or had been among those evacuated from Gallipoli and were awaiting deployment to the Western Front.

Jack had no time to unpack his kit, as he embarked the next day at Alexandria, arriving in Marseilles on 21 March.

In France, Jack was deployed to a special group of 73 AIF soldiers who operated beyond the front lines and, on 6 June 1916, carried out the first Australian trench raid on a German trench, followed by another successful one the next night, with 14 Germans killed, and three captured. They gathered weapons, many personal items and documents containing information about enemy soldiers, and all-important information on the construction of the German trenches.

When word spread of the success of these daring raids most of the group, including Jack, were given eight days’ leave in London. There, they were feted by the British press who dubbed them the 'Black Anzacs' as, during these operations, they wore plain British uniforms, black sand shoes, and blackened their faces with burnt cork ash.

It seems Jack was not ready to return to France at the end of his leave, as he failed to appear at Victoria Station on 19 June. He was apprehended and arrested by Military Police two days later, and escorted, under guard, back to France. For his crime he was sentenced to a week of Field Punishment No: 2 (hard labour, untethered) and fined 14 days’ pay.

Jack was never far from the front lines for the next year but in June 1917 he was hospitalised with what turned out to be syphilis; his treatment taking him away from the trenches for nearly 56 days. It wasn’t uncommon. Over the entire war, the rate of infection for the five Australian divisions was equivalent to a whole battalion, of roughly 1000 men, being out of action.

Jack rejoined his unit in the field on 9 August and, as had happened several times previously, on 25 August he was promoted to temporary sergeant.

Just over three weeks later Jack (28) was killed in action on 20 September 1917 in the Battle of Menin Road, part of the Third Battle of Ypres, Belgium. It was an action which cost the AIF more than 5000 men in a matter of days.

A scribbled line in his war service record indicates Jack was buried in Jacobus Trench, not far from Zonnebeke, but the location was subsequently lost. As Jack has no known grave, he is memorialised on the Menin Gate at Ypres.

In time, Jack’s widow Lucy received a pension, his medals, King’s Plaque and Memorial Scroll. She and their daughter Lucy placed memorial notices for Jack for years, even after she married again, to Thomas Jackson, in 1927.

Lucy outlived Jack by nearly 30 years and died in 1946, aged 58.

https://www.thesoldiersofbarrackstreet.com/sergeant-bartholomew-john-moran-28th-battalion?rq=moran