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War Memorial Hall c1929

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Jack Archibald GRAY

GRAY

Jack Gray was born on 18 January 1895 in North Carlton, Victoria. His parents were Archibald Kerr and Rebecca Boland (née Fisher) Gray. He attended Scotch from 1910 to 1912. He passed the Junior Intermediate exam when only 15, and the Senior one the following year. He played tennis, cricket and football.

Jack was a surveyor when he enlisted on 15 February 1915 in Melbourne. He served in the Heavy Battery, 1st Divisional Ammunition Column, 2nd Field Artillery Brigade with the rank of Corporal. His Regimental Number was 4218.

Jack died on 23 October 1917 at Ypres, Belgium. He was 22 years of age.

Service record

Jack had pre-enlistment experience as a Driver in the 19th Battery of the Australian Field Artillery in the Citizen Military Forces. On enlistment in the AIF he was just 20. He was only 5 feet 4 3/8 inches (163.5 cm) tall. He was allocated to reinforcements to the 2nd Field Artillery Brigade, and apparently more specifically to the 2nd Brigade Ammunition Column. Jack reached Gallipoli on 15 July 1915 and was transferred to the Heavy Battery of the Australian Artillery. On 21 August he was promoted to Bombardier.

In late September he went to the hospital ship Glenart Castle and then on to Cairo with a diagnosis of ‘dilation of heart’. He returned to his unit on Gallipoli on 2 December and went back to Egypt during the evacuation later that month. In February 1916 Jack transferred to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade Ammunition Column, and was with that unit when it travelled to Marseille, France, in late March 1916. He was transferred to the 1st Divisional Ammunition Column in mid-May 1916. This should have been a relatively safe posting.

On 3 February Jack fell ill again, this time with furunculosis (masses of boils). He rejoined his unit 17 days later. On 24 February he was promoted to Corporal and in April was detached to the Artillery Training School for nearly four weeks. Five days later, on 10 May, he was sent to England for two weeks’ leave. From mid-June to mid-July he was training at the 5th Army Artillery School. In late August 1917 Jack was transferred again, this time to the 2nd Field Artillery Brigade: a more dangerous assignment. He went to the 5th Battery.

On 22 October, at Ypres in Belgium, he received gunshot wounds and was admitted to the 3rd Field Ambulance. He died there the following day. His Red Cross Wounded and Missing File contains several accounts of his wounding. Sergeant Alan Davis of the same unit said he saw Jack wounded in the right arm and leg by shell fragments. Though he was badly wounded he was fully conscious as he was taken away (see below). Another comrade said the same shell killed one other man outright and wounded Jack and a third gunner. Captain Hollis recalled that ‘a German shell broke close to Gray, shattering one arm and a leg.’ Although Jack was buried in the Birr Cross Roads Cemetery, for several years his exact burial place was unknown. His father visited the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in London in May 1922 in the hope of discovering more. Only in October that year, during reburial in new graves were Jack’s remains definitely identified by means of his regimental disc (see letter below).

His headstone is engraved, at his father’s direction, with the words ‘For so he giveth/his beloved/sleep’. In 1923 the government sent Jack’s father a letter containing his identity disc, which had been recently discovered (see below).

Jack Gray is buried in the Birr Cross Roads Cemetery (Plot I, Row G, Grave No. 23), Zillebeke, Belgium.