MY GUIDING STAR
istory will remember the 6th Australian Light Horse regiment that served with distinction at the bloody Battle of Romani against the Turks in August 1916, a crucial turning point in the war in the Middle East during WW1. Books have been written of this legendary stand where the 6th Australian Light Horse held out against waves and waves of fanatical Turks with fixed bayonets, in some of the most intense close combat fighting in this arena. The battle lasted for 59 hours straight, where the battle-wearied Anzacs inflicted heavy casualties on the advancing Turks, before staging a controlled retreat.
The 6th Light Horse was raised in 1914 and comprised mainly of volunteers from country NSW, and surprisingly a couple of Kailomas from Levuka. What the history books don't tell you was that these young sons of colonial settlers answered the call of the Empire far from their native shores when they joined up with the Australian Expeditionary Force. They volunteered for duty from this little fledgling country in the middle of the Pacific, that only 40 years earlier had been ceded to Queen Victoria.
Private Edgar Alma Mark Wright was 23 years old when he enlisted at Liverpool, NSW in March 1915 for the 6th Australian Light Horse. He was born in Colo-West, Natuatuacoko, Fiji in 1892 to Georgius Wright and Mary Eliza (Hughes) Wright of Nasese, Suva. He attended Levuka Public School. He also studied at the Australian College in Randwick, Sydney.
The 6th Light Horse was assigned to the Sinai in 1916 because as they were unsuited to the conflict at Gallipoli. Their objective was to halt the advancing Turks and prevent the Suez from being taken. On the 4th of August 1916, at the outbreak of the Battle of Romani, trooper Edgar Alma Mark Wright was killed in action.
The circumstance of his death is both sad and heroic. From the official Australian Army Roll of Honour: “ …. (Private Edgar Alma Mark Wright) was on the sick list the day the Battle of Romani was fought, but early in the forenoon, hearing heavy firing not far off, he obtained a horse and rode up to the front line where his tent mates including his younger brother were engaged, and whilst assisting them, he was killed instantaneously by a bullet.”
What made trooper Wright get out of his sick bed that fateful afternoon to join his mates and brother at the front is inspirational and reflects great personal courage. It is the embodiment of the true Anzac spirit where mateship and honour were the only things that mattered in the face of adversity. He is buried at Kantara War Memorial Cemetery, Egypt. He never made it back home.
Private Edgar Alma Mark Wright wrote the following poem less than three months prior to the Battle of Romani. He may have had a premonition of his own fate in its melancholic lines.
My Guiding Star
Oh, wand’ring star, my guiding star, Whence leadest thou me on? Wilt lead me to that land afar, Where countless other stars have shone Upon the battlefields? Wilt lead me through the hosts of death,Who stalk the battlefield? Or wilt thou there, withdraw the breath That fans thy flame, and dying, yield Unto eternity? Fain would I first thy guiding light Reveal that awful slough, Wherein are wrought those deeds of might And fame long-lived. What reck I though The price be heavy. Shine on, my star, for good or evil, Illuminate as ever And, though thou leadest to the devil, Yet must I follow; nought can sever My fate from thine!
Private Benjamin Maitland Wright, the youngest of the Wright brothers would most probably have seen his brother fall on the battlefield that day.
He was born in Suva on 31st of January 1894 and was educated at Levuka Public School. He enlisted for the 6th Light Horse in Melbourne on the 23rd of July 1915, four months after his older brother.
Following the end of the war, he returned to Australia, then went back to Fiji where he married and settled down. He died in 1967.
The eldest of the Wright brothers was Private George Augustus Lynch Wright, born in Suva the 26th of April 1890. He was the first to enlist, joining the 2nd Light Horse at Holswothy in Sydney on the 23rd of November 1914. The 2nd Light Horse was deployed to Gallipolli, without its horses, and played an important defensive role in securing strategic points on the coastline. They were then deployed to the Sinai, protecting the Nile Valley and the Suez. They were instrumental in the Battle of Gaza and following its capture, advanced towards Jordan.
Private George Augustus Lynch Wright was wounded in battle and was discharged in September 1916. He returned to Australia and later went back to Fiji. He later joined the Fiji Labour Corps.
Mary Eliza (Hughes) Wright offered her three beloved sons to a war that was fought on the other side of the globe, on foreign soil, far from the tranquil surroundings of her island plantation. She would have been an extraordinary woman, a woman of courage who endured great emotional hardship. She was born in 1871 in Bua, Fiji to Capt Benjamin Hughes, an English seafarer and his young Polynesian wife Malia Anae of Falelatai Samoa. They settled in Levuka in the late 1850s. Mary Eliza (Hughes) Wright outlived most of her children and died in Fiji in 1958.
If anyone has more historical information on the Wrights and the Hughes in Fiji please contact lunikliu@swiftdsl.com.au. I am compiling a history of my family the Anaes who are linked to the Hughes of Levuka.
In producing this article I acknowledge the input of Christine Liava’a of the New Zealand Society of Genealogist from whom the above poem and research material was obtained. Vinaka vakalevu for your fine work in keeping the flame alive.
Footnote:
The old photograph of the 6th Australian Light Horse unfortunately does not have names to the faces. Perhaps some of our readers might be able to identify the Wright brothers.
"They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old, age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them." LEST WE FORGET