Contributed by Ron Inglis, October 2021
On 14 December 1915, slaughterman John Edwards Wheeler, 22, a former student of Auburn North Public School, filled out an ‘Application to Join the AIF’ in the Sydney Town Hall. He gave his address as Auburn Road, Auburn. The next day, he enlisted at Casula, declaring he was single and had been born in ‘Lidcombe’. He nominated his mother in Woodford, Blue Mountains, as his next-of-kin.
Private Wheeler embarked on the Nestor on 9 April 1916, travelling via Egypt to the United Kingdom, arriving in Plymouth on 7 June 1916. He remained in camps on the Salisbury Plain for three months and was then 'Re-examined – now deemed fit for Overseas Service’.
Wheeler crossed to France, then proceeded up into Belgium, where he was taken on strength of the 19th Battalion on 26 September 1916. He was killed by random shelling nine days later. He had been in the AIF for nine months.
At the end of August 1916, Anzac 1 Corps was withdrawn from the attack on the Somme and moved up into Belgium to take up positions in the line around the fortress town of Ypres. Officially this was a ‘rest’ as the corps was not attacking, they were ‘holding the line’. Nevertheless, three Auburn Memorial men died while serving in this area: Private John Wheeler, Private Arthur Andrews, and Gallipoli veteran Captain Robert Murray. All three were buried in the Railway Dugouts Burial Ground, Ypres, Belgium. There are nearly 2,500 graves in this cemetery. The breakdown of identified graves is: UK 1,358, Canada 551, Australia 134, Germany 3, India 1, New Zealand 1.
For the inscription on his grave, Wheeler's parents chose: DEARLY LOVED SON OF MR & MRS WHEELER OF WOODFORD
John Wheeler is honoured on the following memorials in Australia:
- Auburn War Memorial
- Municipality of Auburn 1914-1919 Honour Roll
- Auburn North Public School Great War Roll of Honor
- Woodford Memorial Park and Pavilion
- NSW Government Railways and Tramways First World War Honour Roll, Central Station (assumed)
- Roll of Honour Australian War Memorial Canberra
His decorations:
- Victory Medal
- British War Medal 1914-20
