Can you help find James?

James was born in 1876 at Bendigo, Victoria, the son of Brian Byrne, a native of County Wicklow, Ireland, and Catherine Byrne (née Burns), from Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland. They married in 1862. Both parents were Irish-born Catholics, part of the nineteenth-century migration that shaped the social and cultural life of the Victorian goldfields. James was the sixth of their seven children:

James grew up in the Bendigo and White Hills district, an area closely tied to mining and railway work. His father worked on the railroads. James was educated at the Bendigo Marist Brothers College. In July 1890, when James was still a teenager, his father Brian was killed in a railway accident while working in the Mitiamo–Dingee district. Catherine was able to draw on her children for support. Elizabeth was 22 and the youngest, Margaret, 12. Bernard was 18 and James 14, possibly both working by then, so responsibility likely came early.

As a young man, James followed a path like many Bendigo goldfields families, moving to Western Australia in search of work during the depression of the 1890s. By the early twentieth century he was living in the remote gold fields area of Peak Hill in the Murchison Region of Western Australia, earning his living as a prospector.

Life on the Western Australian goldfields was physically demanding and often isolated, requiring resilience and endurance.

James’ decision to enlist at 39 years of age, an older recruit by the standards of the day. A ‘career change’ at this time may have reflected the status of mining in the area, where a downturn was evident once the war started - there was a sharp increase in prices for materials and services. Speaking at a farewewell for volunteers, Richard Hamilton, the general manager of Great Boulder Pty, underlined the enthusiasm for the Imperial cause, noting :

James took his physical on 14 July 1915 at Meekatharra, Western Australia, which is 200 km south of Peak Hill and 800 km northeast of Perth. On 19 July he was sworn in at Blackboy Hill Camp on the outskirts of Perth. He was assigned to D Company of the 32nd Battalion. He named his brother Bernard, who was living in Geraldton, WA at the time, as his next of kin. The 32nd was a new battalion, with A and B Companies to be made up of recruits from South Australia and C and D Companies from Western Australia.

At the end of September, the Western Australian men moved from the Blackboy Hill Camp to Adelaide to form the full battalion. All were assembled at the Cheltenham Racecourse Camp. The 32nd departed for Egypt on 18 November 1915, with the unit being split between two troop ships HMAT A2 Geelong and HMAT A13 Katuna. James was on the Geelong. There was much fanfare about the new battalion in South Australia, with gatherings, community support and reviews of the troops by the Premier. As reported in The Adelaide Register:

James arrived in Suez on 14 December 1915 and the 32nd moved to the El Ferdan camp just before Christmas. A month later they marched to Ismailia and then to the major camp at Tel-el-Kebir where they stayed for February and most of March. Tel-el-Kebir was about 110 km northeast of Cairo and the 40,000 men in the camp were comprised of Gallipoli veterans and the thousands of reinforcements arriving regularly from Australia. Their next stop was at Duntroon Plateau and then at Ferry Post until the end of May, where they trained and guarded the Suez Canal. Their last posting in Egypt was a few weeks at Moascar.

One soldier’s diary complained of being “sick up to the neck of heat and flies”, of the scarcity of water during their long marches through the sand and he described some of the food as “dog biscuits and bully beef”. He did go on to mention good times as well with swims, mail from home, visiting the local sights and the like. Source AWM C2081789 Diary of Theodor Milton PFLAUM 1915-16, page 29, page 12 During their time in Egypt the 32nd had the honour of being inspected by H.R.H. Prince of Wales.

After spending six months in Egypt, the call to support the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front came in mid-June. The 32nd left from Alexandria on the ship Transylvania on 17 June 1916, arriving at Marseilles, France on 23 June 1916, after which they were immediately entrained for a three-day train trip to Steenbecque. Their route took them to a station just out of Paris, within sight of the Eiffel Tower, through Boulogne and Calais, with a view of the English Channel, before disembarking and marching to their camp at Morbecque, about 30 kilometres from Fleurbaix. Theodor Pflaum (No. 327) and Wesley Choat (No. 68) wrote about the trip:

They were headed to the area of Fleurbaix in northern France which was known as the ‘Nursery Sector’ – a supposedly relatively quiet area where inexperienced Allied troops could learn the harsh realities of Western Front trench warfare against the Germans. But the quiet times did not last long. Training continued with a focus on bayonets and the use of gas masks, assuredly with a greater emphasis, given their position near the front. The 32nd moved to the Front on 14 July and James was into the trenches for the first time on 16 July, only three weeks after arriving in France.

The overall plan was to use brigades from the Australian Fifth Division to conduct a diversionary assault on the German trenches at Fromelles. The 32nd Battalion’s position was on the extreme left flank, with only 100 metres of No Man’s Land to get to the German trenches. As they advanced, they were to link up with the 31st Battalion on their right. D Company’s Lieutenant Sam Mills’ letters home were optimistic for the coming battle:

On the 17th they were reconnoitring the trenches and cutting passages through the barbed wire, preparing for an attack, but it was delayed due to the weather However, their position made the job more difficult, as not only did they have to protect themselves while advancing, but they also had to block off the Germans on their left, to stop them from coming around behind them. On the morning of the 18th, A Company and C Company went into the trenches to relieve B and D Companies, who rejoined the next day. Lieutenant Frederick Stolz described the calm before the storm:

The Zero Hour for advancing from their front-line trenches was to be 5.45 PM, but the Germans knew this attack was coming and were well-prepared. They opened a massive artillery bombardment on the Australians at 5.15 PM, causing chaos and many casualties. The charge over the parapet began at 5.53 PM. A and C Company were in the first and second waves to go and James’ D Company and B Company were in the third and fourth. They were successful in the initial assaults and by 6.30 PM were in control of the German’s 1st line system (map Trench B), which was described as:

Unfortunately, with the success of their attack, ‘friendly’ artillery fire caused a large number of casualties because the artillery observers were unable to confirm the position of the Australian gains. The 32nd were able to take out a German machine gun in their early advances, but were being “seriously enfiladed” from their left flank.

By 8.30 PM their left flank had come under heavy bombardment with high explosives and shrapnel. Return bombardment support was provided and the 32nd were told that “the trenches were to be held at all costs”.

Source - AWM4 23/49/12, 32nd Battalion War Diaries, July 1916, page 12

Fighting continued through the night. The Australians made a further charge at the main German line beyond Trench B, but they were low on grenades, there was machine gun fire from behind them from the emplacement at Delangre Farm and they were so far advanced that they were getting shelled by both sides. In the early morning of the 20th, the Germans began a counterattack from the Australian’s left flank, bombing and advancing into Trench A (map). Given the Australian advances that had been made earlier, the rear Trench E had been left almost empty, which then enabled the Germans to regain that trench and envelop the men of the 32nd. At 5.30 AM the Germans attacked from both flanks in force and with bombing parties. Having only a few grenades left, the only resistance they could offer was with rifles:

What remained of the 32nd Battalion had finally withdrawn by 7.30 AM on 20 July. The initial roll call revealed the scale of the disaster, with 71 killed, 375 wounded and 219 missing, including James. The devastation remained visible long after the fighting had ended. When Australia's official war historian Charles Bean visited the battlefield two and a half years later, he observed bones, torn uniforms and Australian equipment still scattered across the ground. The final impact on the 32nd Battalion was devastating. 225 soldiers were killed or died from wounds sustained at Fromelles, of whom 166 were unidentified. Lieutenant Sam Mills survived the battle. In a letter home he recalled the courage of the men as they went into the attack:

With about 85 per cent of the 32nd Battalion killed, wounded or taken prisoner, there was enormous confusion in determining what had happened to individual soldiers. For many families, weeks and months passed without definite news. The Army and the Red Cross undertook extensive searches to locate the missing, but, unfortunately, there are no witness statements or Army or German records of what happened to James during the battle, he was just ‘missing’. While there are no records, on 13 September 1916 he was officially declared as having been killed in action on 20 July 1916. Many others did not receive this declaration until as much as a year later.

James’s brother, Bernard, also of Western Australia, was recorded as his next of kin. He wrote the Army in January 1917 seeking to receive James’ belongings. He did provide a new address for futher contact.

James was awarded the 1914-15 Star Medal, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. However, when James’ medals and his Army War Gratuity were attempted to be issued, they were unable to establish contact with Bernard. After multiple years of attempts tp locate Bernard, he was delcared ‘untraceable’ and the items were never delivered to James’s family. James’s mother Catherine had remained in Western Victoria, separated by distance from her sons in Western Australia. In 1907, Catherine lost her home at Huntly in a house fire and subsequently relocated to the Colac district, where she lived at Cororooke with her daughter Margaret Ellen, a waitress. She died there in October 1918, aged 79, and was buried in the Roman Catholic portion of Colac Cemetery

James’ Grand Niece Margaret recalls information that came down from her grandmother Catherine Keogh nee Byrne. After the brothers left Victoria, the family didn’t hear another word about their fate for a very long time. But around 1906, James’ sisters Catherine and Margaret actually travelled to Kalgoorlie looking for their brothers. While there, Catherine met James Keogh, where they both worked in a hotel. They married in Boulder WA in 1906. James got miners’ disease, so they returned to Victoria about 1911. The two sisters then opened a boarding house in Cororooke, Victoria. At some point contact was remade with the either James before his death or Bernard as the . Catherine’s death notice recorded that she left “two daughters and two sons, one of whom is on active service in France.”

Source - Notes and Events. The Colac Herald, 16 October 1918, p. 2. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article74474333

This wording suggests that Catherine may not have been aware that James had been killed at Fromelles more than two years earlier, or that confirmation of his fate had never reached her. The physical separation of family members across states, the loss of stable contact with Bernard, and the widespread delays and inaccuracies in wartime casualty reporting all contributed to this uncertainty. Bernard was living in Mokine in 1917, Goomalling in 1918, at the time his mother died and finally Wongan Hills, Kalgoorlie in 1925. Bernard survived the war years and was later traced to Western Australia, where he died at Dalwallinu in 1939, but James's fate left a different kind of unanswered question.

His death was recorded, but his body was never identified and his family had no grave at which to remember him.

James’ name is commemorated at V.C. Corner Australian Cemetery Memorial and on the Marist College Honour Roll in Bendigo.

James’ remains were not recovered; he has no known grave. After the battle, the Germans recovered 250 Australian soldiers and placed them in a burial pit at Pheasant Wood. This grave was discovered in 2008 and since then efforts have been underway to identify these soldiers by DNA testing from family members. As of 2026, 181 of the soldiers have been identified, including 41 of the 166 unidentified soldiers from the 32nd Battalion. We welcome all branches of James’ family to come forward to donate DNA to help with his identification.

Please visit Fromelles.info to follow the ongoing identification project and James’ story.