Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

James Thomas Paterson was born at Fifteen Mile Creek on 23 October 1887. At the time his parents were resident at Stanthorpe and his father was a railway lengthsman[1]. Although he was enrolled at the Wallumbilla school in November 1895, it seems his attendance may have been sporadic as he came and left the school a couple of times, ultimately completing 5th grade. When he first registered to vote, on the Maranoa-Roma electoral roll, he recorded his occupation as a farmer, at Lucky Flat, Pickenjennie just outside Wallumbilla. 

James enlisted early, on 31st August 1915[2], to join the Commonwealth war effort in Europe. The men were given great send offs, with dances and community teas, which were often written up in the local press.[3] Throughout the war years the newspapers were full of florid stories extolling the virtues of those who went to war and condemning those who lagged behind. Perhaps James was on the train which left Dalby on 1st September 1915. The recruits included “boyish clerks and hefty bronzed men from the land[4]”. The local recruiting officer complained that “it was a serious thing that the sinews of the country were going away in such shoals when in Brisbane one saw the ‘straw hat brigade’ still adorning Queen Street.”[5] James was apparently an excellent shot, like many men from the bush and had served with the Roma Commonwealth Light Horse[6]. On enlistment James gave his occupation as a farmer and his religion as Roman Catholic. He was 5ft 9½inches (177cms) and weighed 150lbs. He had hazel eyes, brown hair and a dark complexion.

No doubt duty, and possibly adventure, may have played a role in James’s decision to enlist, but the terrible conditions on the land in the Maranoa may have also played their part. In a cycle typical of the West, life for the farmer was desperate that year. There were no cattle to be had, the local butchers were having to shut down, and only the prickly pear as a vegetable saved the stock and the people. The Condamine and Balonne rivers were so affected that “splendid cod” (as big as a man) floated about dead.[7] This may be the drought that Norman Kunkel remembers his father as saying that the birds literally fell from the sky mid-flight.

James married Elizabeth (Lizzie) Maud Cahill[8] on 1 November 1915, and left for the front 10 days later[9]. Before they married he insisted that Lizzie guarantee she would not stop him from going to the War because it was a man’s duty to go. Their wedding had a distinct military flavour with the groom and best man wearing their army uniforms. Elizabeth was a beautiful bride and she looked very elegant in her wedding dress. They also had carriages with white horses and created a very special sight for all the people arriving for Mass.

Initially James’s Army posting was to the 9th reinforcements of the 25th Battalion, however, on arrival in Egypt he was absorbed into the 49th Battalion in April 1916, no doubt due to the extent of Australian war losses. After this brief period in Egypt he was transferred to the Western Front in France.

James was wounded in the elbow[10] on 14 August 1916 during service in France and sent back to England for treatment and recovery. This event was recorded in the local newspapers at home but it is apparent from his wife’s letters that she had not been properly informed by the authorities, and was naturally distressed.[11]  This may have been the injury that family history remembers being caused by a sniper’s shot. James returned to France after his recovery, on 4 December 1916. In early December the rest of the 49th entrained for Le Chaussee where they “celebrated Christmas in style[PC1] ”. Perhaps they also found joy and pleasure in the excitement of heavy snow, throwing snowballs, and building tall snow kangaroos and lions[12]. The French soldiers must have been completely bemused by this Aussie “spin” on snowmen! The 49th Battalion was 20 miles behind the front during Christmas 1916, so they were also able to enjoy canteen goods and concerts arranged by the Australian Comforts Fund.[13] The canteen goods were often 2 quart billies filled with a small plum pudding, cakes and biscuits, butterscotch, tinned meats, candied and dried fruits, smoking material, toothbrushes, pencils, penknives, tin openers etc[14]. Whether James benefited from this largesse can’t be told because it seems that he only rejoined his unit on 6 January 1917. Nevertheless it gives us some idea of the way the people at home sought to remind the soldiers that they were remembered at home.

It was a long hard winter in Northern France that year and in early April the men were experiencing arctic conditions and thunderstorms. After months in the muddy, icy trenches with their boots rotting, the men must have longed for the heat, and even the flies, of home. Despite the weather the fighting continued unabated and as March ended the Allied Forces launched a major assault on the German forward line. On 2 April 1917, Palm Sunday, Field Marshal Haig reported that the British troops had captured “strongly held positions on a 10 mile front forming part of the advanced defences between the Bapaume-Cambrai road and Arras.” [15] During this attack, James Paterson, as part of C Company, was attached to the 50th Battalion and a number of villages were captured despite “determined resistance.”[16] One of the villages captured was Noreuil[17] which the 49th Battalion held, as part of the front line, until 4th April when they were charged with capturing a neighbouring railway cutting. The assault on the morning of 5th April, 1917 cost James Paterson his life and killed or injured nearly half of C Company.[18]

It is likely that Liz had no inkling of his death when she read the reports of these battles in the Good Friday edition of the newspapers. There is no record on his file of when or how she was advised of her husband’s death and it was clear that censorship severely limited how much they were told[19]. The ambiguity continued for over a month and no doubt she clung to hope until his death was definitively confirmed by the OIC, Base Records in late May 1917.

James’s body was never recovered after the fierce shelling and his name is listed among those of over 10,000 fellow Australians on the wall at the Military Cemetery of Villers-Brettoneux[20]. To walk in this cemetery in the early morning fog and frost of a freezing November morning is a most haunting experience. One feels keenly the lives lost from so many small Australian towns, like Wallumbilla, to which sons and husbands would never return. They fought and died under such terrible conditions and gave their lives for an ideal they believed in, to benefit people so far removed from their own home. Their honour is simply evoked in the words Jimmy’s bereaved wife provided for his entry in the Roll of Honour of the Australian War Memorial: “Man’s Duty”. The  immense loss in these small towns is shown via a  medal  in possession of his daughter Mary Roberts . On the front  it bears the words “AIF 49th Battalion Australia” , and on the reverse the words “Presented by the residents of Wallumbilla 29.5.18 , In memory of Pte J. Paterson who died for his country.”

James’s death was felt by his extended family. His death was reported in the Maryborough newspaper as follows: “News has been received at Tiaro of the death of Pte James Patterson, son of Mr and Mrs Archibald Patterson (sic), of Toowoomba, and a nephew of Mrs P Connors of Tiaro. The deceased who was killed in the firing line in France on April 25 (sic), had been almost two years on active service. He had been wounded and had only returned to the Front from a London hospital a few weeks prior to meeting his death. The late Pte Patterson who was most popular at Tiaro leaves a young wife and child.”

Jimmy and Lizzies’s only child, Elizabeth Maud Paterson, had been born on 26 July 1916. Sadly, she would never know her father. Lizzie had promised Jimmy that she would give their daughter a uniquely Australian nickname, not a “silly” nickname, and so for most of her life their daughter was known as Cooee. To others she was simply known as Mary. Beth worked hard to support her child and took a range of jobs[i]. At one stage she ran a small general store at Wallumbilla, near the station, and Mary remembers sitting on the counter playing with a small stack of pencils. Later on they moved to a station out further west, where Lizzie worked as the station cook. By then she was also supporting her young brother who had been left orphaned when their father died in 1916. What a sad and difficult year that must have been for her, carrying her husband’s child and hearing of her father’s death and her husband’s injuries, and worrying about her older brother, Patrick, at the Front. Although she initially feared Patrick, too, had been killed, he returned to Australia in December 1917. Presumably his injuries were sufficiently bad to repatriate him early. No wonder her family said she did not like to speak of the war.

James Paterson is listed on the Wallumbilla Roll of Honour. Roma has planted rows of bottle trees, one of which honours James Paterson. This distinctly Australian memorial is known as Roma and District’s Avenue of Heroes.  His name stands along side those of his fallen 49th Battalion colleagues, on the bronze plaques lining the central courtyard of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Visitors can place a poppy beside their names as a small remembrance of their sacrifice and I like to do that for James and the other Kunkel relations whenever I visit Canberra.

Beth was a strong woman and a real battler and survivor. She survived these difficult knocks and stood on her own feet to move forward with her life, providing for her daughter and sending her own young brother to school at Nudgee College. Over the years, she sent countless letters to the Defence Department trying to obtain some small memento for their child or even find out a little more of her husband’s death. Sadly, given the circumstances of the battle, nothing could be done to help her although she appears to have gleaned that he had died at Stumdrum Rd[21].

On 4 December 1922, she remarried another returned soldier, Ernest Smith, a Light Horseman. He is remembered as a good man and a good father to her little girl, Mary. The family moved to North Queensland and lived at El Arish. Ernest called his wife Pat (possibly drawing a line between the old and the new). In the 1960s she took up bowls and her new friends called her Beth. She lived to a grand old age, dying from complications after a fall at age 97. To the end she retained her fiery fighting spirit.

Her daughter Mary married Edmund George Roberts at Tully on 1 January 1938[ii]. Eddie spent most of his working life in  the Post Office, including a term as a morse code (telegraphist) operator in the GPO Brisbane. For a few years he left the Post Office and the family ran a mixed business at Bardon in Brisbane.

They now live on the Gold Coast not far from their son Peter and his wife. Eddie enjoys gardening while Mary enjoys cooking. Mary looks very like her mother from the pictures of her parents’ wedding. The couple have a lively curiosity and belie their ages.

Mary and Eddie have one son, Peter Roberts. Peter worked with the Bank of New South Wales (later Westpac) completing many postings around the state and along the way making friends in Mt Isa with another bank “Johnny” from the National Bank, Trevor Holmes, only to discover many years later that they were cousins! Peter married Elizabeth (Betty) Mary McRitchie on 8 October 1966. They spent and  spent the first 2 years of their married life in Tasmania, after which they returned to Queensland and  remained there until a rather exotic posting of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. Peter and Betty now live at the Gold Coast where Peter is able to indulge his passion for fishing and Betty is kept busy being an excellent “Nanna” to their three grandchildren. Peter and Betty have three children, Linda Anne Roberts, Michael Peter Edmund Roberts, and Andrea Maree Roberts.

Linda is married to Mark Casey and they have two daughters, Bridget Anne and Emily Jane Casey. Michael is married to Geraldine Maree Jensen. They have a daughter Charlotte Roberts. Andrea is married to John Andrew Nielsen and they have 3 sons, Luke Stuart ,Ben and Max Nielsen.

[1] Queensland Birth Certificate for James Thomas Paterson provided by Peter Roberts.
[2] Reported in The Courier Mail 1 September 1915 page 10.
[3] Stemmler, R. op cit p57
[4] The Courier Mail 2 September 1915 page 7: heading “Straw Hat Brigade”
[5] The Courier Mail 2 September 1915 page 7 heading “Straw Hat Brigade”
[6] Information provided by his daughter, Mary and service documented on his Roll of Honour entry by his wife.
[7] Toowoomba Chronicle 3 November 1915, page 4. Story entitled “Drought in the Maranoa”.
[8] Elizabeth was born on 29 September 1894 at Edington St and Ambie Rd, Rockhampton. She was the daughter of Patrick  (Paddy ) Cahill (born c1860 Port Arlington, Queens, Ireland, died 19 May 1916) and Mary Johannah Dyer (born c1863 Kilkenny, Ireland, died May 1912). Her birth certificate records her name as Elizabeth Nora Cahill not Elizabeth Maud as she herself appears to have thought. Information provided by Peter Roberts. In her early years she was known as Liz or Lizzie . After marrying Ernest Smith her new husband called her Pat. In the 1960’s she took up bowls and her bowling friends called her Beth.
[9] Darling Downs Gazette 2 November 1915, p3c6
[10] Other entries in his service record document it as a mild wound to the shoulder.
[11] Darling Downs Gazette 9 October 1915 25 and 20 May 1916 p24
[12] Pte Groom’s letter, op cit. The Courier Mail 13 April 1917, page 7.
[13] “Always Faithful” The History of the 49th Battalion. Cranston F. Boolarong Publications Brisbane 1983. p18
[14] “The Billycan Fund” reported in The Courier Mail of 23 September 1915 page 7.
[15] The Western Star newspaper, Roma. 7th April 1917 (Good Friday). Page 2 report headed “The Allied Push”
[16] Field Marshal Haig’s report published in Western Star newspaper 7th April 1917 page 2.
[17] Photographs of the battle area at Noreuil can be seen on the Australian War Memorial Web site www.awm.gov.au under the Collections database.
[18] War Diary and Operations Orders 49th Battalion, AIF, Australian War Memorial
[19] James’s Army file offers a range of possible notifications. On 17 May 1917, James’s sister, Mary Bishop also wrote to the Base Records Officer requesting clarification of “some mistake in the report of my brother being killed.” By 26 May 1917, the Public Curator was requesting a certificate of death. A Field Service report confirming his death was issued by Lt Crawford as per field return of 14 April 1917.  On 21 July 1917, there was confirmation that James Thomas Paterson was killed on 5 April 1917 as per cable No C.I.B.L. 1325 from the Commandant, AIF HQ, London on 30 April 1917 and confimed by mail from the Commandant on 7 May 1917.
[20] Memorial panel 149
[21] The location of death that she provided on the Roll of Honour Circular she completed for the Australian War Memorial.

[i] Beth had no love of the Patersons who had not supported her in this ordeal. They had offered to take the child and raise her themselves because she would not be able to bring Mary up as well as they could. To be fair to them, Catherine was then dying of cancer, and Archibald himself was also not a well man. They must have been devastated by the death of their son and grasping to hold some small part of him. From other stories of Beth’s rift with her younger brother one concludes she had the gift of the Irish when it came to holding a feud.
[ii] Prior to their marriage Eddie had been chasing a nurse from the hospital and nearly got caught their one evening when the matron came looking for him –he had to pretend to be a tree as they shone their torches around!

 [PC1]quote from where??? Or take out of quotations