James Angus WALLACE
Year of Birth: 1892
Place of Birth: Hughenden, Queensland, Australia
Date of Enlistment: 4 October 1915
Date and Place of Embarkation: 30 March 1916 at Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Ship: HMAT Star of Victoria
Rank Private
Unit(s): 26th Infantry Battalion A.I.F.
Regimental Number: 4534
Died: 2 September 1918
James Angus Wallace was born on 19 July 1892 in Hughenden, Queensland, one of eight children of Charles & Minnie Wallace. Three of their sons enlisted to serve in the Great War.
John Cameron Wallace joined the Kennedy Regiment and embarked on the Kanowna in readiness for the capture of German New Guinea. The ship returned to Townsville after the crew refused to proceed past Thursday Island due to the lack of fresh water, the reason the soldiers were called the “Dirty 500”.
George Walter Gordon “Watty” Wallace raised his age by 2 years to enlist and served in France.
James Angus Wallace was employed as a railway shunter when he enlisted in Townsville on 4 October 1915 as a Private. He was 23 years 4 months of age, 5 feet 11 inches tall, weighed 10 stone 8 pounds with a dark complexion, hazel eyes and light brown hair. His religion was Presbyterian and named his mother, Minnie, as his next of kin. His father had died in 1911.
After training at Enoggera camp in Brisbane he embarked from there on the HMAT Star of Victoria on 30 March 1916.
He arrived in Alexandria, Egypt to join the British Expeditionary Force then proceeded to Marseilles Frances on 5 June and joined his unit at Etaples on 28 July. He was wounded a day later and admitted to the 4th Casualty Clearing Station then transferred to the Kitchener Hospital, Brighton, England on 31 July with a gunshot wound to his right hand.
After treatment and recovery his spent a short time with the 7th Training Battalion before returning to Etaples France and rejoining his unit on 20 November 1916.
In February the next year he was treated for trench feet, then in early October he was wounded in action for the second time with a gunshot wound to his left leg.
After treatment he rejoined his unit in Belgium and shortly after was admitted to hospital with tonsillitis.
For a third time he was wounded in action in July 1918 and rejoined his battalion on 31 July 1918.
On the 2 September, he was originally reported wounded for the fourth time and subsequently reported killed in action.
He was buried in an isolated grave a half mile north of Peronne. In January 1920, his mother was advised her son’s remains had been exhumed and reinterred in the Peronne Communal Cemetery Extension, France.
Online Resources
NAA: B2455 (WALLACE J H) National Archives of Australia
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
National Library of Australia: Trove Digitised Newspapers
Australian Light Horse Studies Centre
Queensland Registrar of Births Deaths & Marriages
Ancestry.com.au: Queensland Electoral Rolls
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