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Annandale's Great War: A Short Walk | Douglas Grant | The Fitzpatrick Brothers | 36th Battalion | Wireless Miller Brothers | End of the Great War | Trains, Sound, Film and Industry | Beale Pianos | Electricity | 1920s Annandale: A Short Walk
In 1915, the New South Wales Minister for Public Information and member for Leichhardt Campbell Carmichael ran a recruiting drive which resulted in the formation of the 9th Brigade comprising the 33rd, 34th, 35th and 36th Battalions.
In October 1917, Carmichael was wounded, for the second time. The fighting on the Western Front took a heavy toll. Without reinforcements from Australia, the 36th battalion was disbanded on 30th April 1918 and the surviving men were assigned to the other three battalions of the 9th Brigade.
Returning to Sydney, the Leichhardt MP raised a second “Carmichael's thousand”.
On the 25th May, the reinforcements were entertained at the Sydney Town Hall at a function organised by the National Rifle Association and 36th Battalion Comforts Committee. Premier Holman presented Carmichael with a Yarran boomerang inscribed with the Brewarrina District's Aboriginal word, Thynulungatha (come back here).
The 36th Battalion was raised at Broadmeadow (Newcastle) in February 1916. Its ranks were filled with men from Rifle clubs who responded to Carmichael's call. Carmichael himself signed up as a Captain in the Battalion.
By the time Carmichael arrived in France, with his reinforcements, the war was winding up and he returned to Australia.
Messines, 1917; Ypres, 1917; Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Poelcappelle, Passchendaele, Somme, 1918; Avre, France and Flanders,1916-18
Captain Carmichael attended a fund raising Heroes Fair at the corner of Johnston Street and Parramatta Road in 1919.
In the post war allocation of war trophies, the Annandale borough was allocated a heavy machine gun. The gun had been captured by the 36th Battalion at Flanders in 1917.
The 36th Battalion was raised again in 1921, as a part-time Citizens Force unit, with its Boer war name of St George's English Rifle Regiment.
Marghanita da Cruz, August 2014
Author of Annandale's Great War: A Short Walk
This page www.ramin.com.au/annandale/36thbattalion.shtml last update 18 September 2014.