Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

James Wilfred MARDLING #4834 8th Battalion

James Mardling is one of several Victorians listed on the Kilcoy Roll of Honour. It is difficult to find any connection between James and the Kilcoy district and the reason for his inclusion can only be guessed at, particularly since his brother, Farnel, was killed beside James at Broodseinde but is not listed on the Kilcoy Roll. The one possible link is that Richard May (narrative below) who was the Bank Manager for the Union Bank of Australia in Kilcoy had been born and educated in Victoria. Richard May may have known James Mardling as both were bank employees.

James Mardling was born at Swan Hill, Victoria, in 1890 into the large Catholic family of William and Elle Mardling. He attended Saint Patrick’s Parish School in Port Fairy and upon leaving school secured employment as a bank officer in Port Fairy.

James presented himself for enlistment in Port Fairy on 19th November 1915 and then proceeded to Melbourne where he was formally taken in to the AIF on 23rd November. James boarded the “Wiltshire” in Melbourne on 7th March 1916. The embarkation roll shows James as part of the 15th reinforcements of the 8th Battalion.

James elder brother, Farnel, who had enlisted four months before James was also a member of the 8th Battalion, although they would not be reunited until September of 1917.

James transited through Egypt in April and May of 1916 before sailing to Marseilles and then spending six weeks in the huge British depot camp at Etaples. He finally was taken on by the 8th Battalion on 29th July. Farnel Mardling had been injured at Pozieres just before James arrived in the battalion’s lines and would spend almost the next twelve months in various convalescent depots being treated for a shrapnel wound and then trench foot.

The 8th battalion, like all of the Australian units thrust into the battle of Pozieres suffered enormous casualties and it would take the next six months before the battalion was fit to be put back into the line. For James, the first major action was at Bullecourt in April of 1917. Many of those new reinforcements such as James who had joined in the previous year became casualties in the failure at Bullecourt. After Bullecourt, James was promoted to lance Corporal in charge of a Lewis Gun team.

The 8th moved to Belgium in the early summer of 1917 where the battalion was involved in the battle of Menin Road in September. After Menin Road, James was reunited with his brother Farnel and both men enjoyed a fortnights leave before returning to duty in time for the attack on Broodseinde Ridge. Farnel had been assigned to James’ gun team and as the artillery barrage began to creep forward on 4th October, James and his crew reached the objective and set up the machine gun in a crater. Several witnesses describe a large high explosive shell landing squarely on the position. William Russell who was the sole survivor provided evidence to the Red Cross Wounded and Missing Inquiry Service that the other five members of the gun crew were killed. The bodies were buried on the battlefield by a Pioneers unit.

When members of the Graves Registration Unit searched the Passchendaele battlefield after the war, the remains of only one member of that gun crew were located, James Mardling. His remains were reinterred in the Oxford Road Military Cemetery in the north eastern suburbs of Ypres.

Farnel Mardling, whose remains lie hidden somewhere near the spot where he was killed is commemorated on the tablets of the Menin Gate Memorial. His name is included along with 30,000 other British and Dominion troops who perished in Flanders and have no known grave. That sacrifice is remembered each evening at 8:00pm when the traffic through the Menin Gate is halted and a ceremony incorporating the laying of wreaths and the playing of the last post is conducted. The citizens of Ypres (now Iper) have maintained this tradition since the construction of the memorial in 1928, with only a brief pause from 1940-1945.