John Douglass was a carpenter at Hillside Railway Workshops when he joined the Otago Infantry Regiment in April, 1916. He was with the Otagos on December 3rd, 1917, when they made their disastrous attack on Polderhoek Chateau in the Battle of Passchendaele.
Things went bad from the begining of the attack. The artillery barrage dropped on the area of No-man's-land that the attack was traversing, and they had to run through it, suffering badly. Before they were able to outrun the falling shells the German machine gunners joined in from the ruins of the chateau, nearby blockhouses and higher ground to the right. An already serious number of casualties increased dramatically. Inevitably, "despite many individual efforts of gallantry and leadership" (according to the Official History of the Regiment), the attack failed.
John Douglas was possibly fortunate to be evacuated from the battlefield, with a severe gunshot wound in his left leg which resulted in amputation. He was also suffering from serious blood loss and in those days, when transfusions were still in the experimental stage, he was on the dangerously ill list until February of 1918. He also had to suffer the re-amputation of his wounded leg. The circumstances which would have led to this can only be imagined.
At the end of 1918 he wore an artificial leg and was well enough to leave Southampton on the Hospital Ship "Marama" but he had another problem - tuberculosis. He began to show a "wet cough" in October, 1918, and was admitted to Dunedin Hospital in August, 1920.
MILITARY FUNERAL NOTICE.
Friends of the late No. 10032 Private J. R. Douglass (and family) are respectfully invited to attend his Funeral, which will leave his parents' residence, Nelson street, South Dunedin, TO-MORROW (Friday), the 19th inst., at 2.30 p.m., for the Southern Cemetery.
HOPE AND KINASTON, Undertakers. -Evening Star, 18/11/1920.
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