Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

# 4026 BONDING James Jacob           31st / 15th Battalion
 
James Bonding reported he was born in Bundaberg to Agnes and Niels Bonding. The family moved to Kingaroy in time for James and his brother John to attend school at Kingaroy. James went on to serve in the senior cadets at Kingaroy for 4 years. Also, around this time, James trained as a plumber.
 
On 24th July 1916, James presented himself to the Brisbane recruiting depot in Adelaide Street. He stated that he was 18 years and one month old and gave his occupation as a plumber of Kingaroy. The fact that James was so young and that he had travelled a long way to enlist perhaps suggests that his parents were not in complete agreement with him joining the AIF. James’ file does not contain the usual written permission required for enlistments under 21 years.
 
James was taken in to the 11th Depot Battalion at Enoggera to begin his initial training before being allocated to the 10th reinforcements of the 31st Battalion. He named his mother, Agnes, of Booie Road Kingaroy, as his next of kin. The reinforcements boarded the Transport “Boonah” in Brisbane on 21st October and sailed via South Africa and Sierra Leone to arrive in the English port of Plymouth on 10th January 1917. The reinforcements travelled by train across southern England to the 8th Training Battalion Depot at Fovant outside the city of Salisbury.
 
For James, training continued until May when he was shipped across the English Channel to the large British Transit Camp at Etaples on the French Coast. On 15th June 1917, James was transferred to the 15thBattalion and marched in to the battalion lines in the rear area behind the Messines battle front. The 15thBattalion had a proud history being one of the two Queensland battalions raised at the beginning of the war. The battalion was in action at Gallipoli from the first day. When the AIF was expanded in 1916, the 15th as part of the 4th Brigade became part of the 4th Division.
 
By the time that James was taken on strength, the 15th had seen action at Pozieres and Mouquet Farm as well as Bullecourt. In spite of suffering heavy losses in France, the 15th continued to be a well trained unit. The Battle of Messines, the opening of the 3rd Battle of Ypres, began on 7th June and the 4th Brigade was involved from the beginning.
 
The 15th continued to hold the line beyond the village of Messines for the next two months and James would have endured almost constant enemy shelling. The brigade was withdrawn at the beginning of September for a rest and an opportunity to re-equip before beginning training for the next offensive in the Ypres campaign, the advance on the Westhoek Ridge in the Battle of Menin Road. From there the advance continued to Polygon Wood until the campaign came to a halt in November, bogged down in the Flanders mud at Passchendaele.
 
All five divisions of the AIF were withdrawn from the fighting in Belgium for the winter of 1917/18. The 15thtook the time to repair and replace equipment, for the ordinary ranks to attend the divisional baths where they were issued with clean underwear, and to engage in various sporting competitions. There was a strong belief that once the spring of 1918 came, the Germans would launch a pre-emptive strike, most likely in the Ypres / Messines area of the front.
 
The German offensive, code named Operation Michael, began on 21st March 1918 with assaults all along the line from Belgium down to the Somme; but it was soon apparent that the major thrust was in the Somme region. The British 5th Army which was holding the line across the Somme was outnumbered by highly trained and equipped storm troopers. The line crumbled and the German forces raced westward across the old Somme battlefields, retaking many of the towns and villages which the British had won at great cost in 1916. The vital city of Amiens, a communication hub, was in great danger of falling to the enemy. If that happened, the British and French forces would be split and the Germans could pour through to the Channel ports; effectively winning the war.
 
To defend Amiens, the British Field Commander Douglas Haig ordered his most successful and battle-hardened troops, four of the five divisions of the AIF in Belgium, to race south to establish a defensive line in front of Amiens. On 26th March, the 4th Division, which included James Bonding in the 15th, began a journey south. At first, they travelled by train and then motor buses but for the final part of the trek, the men marched through the night with the encroaching enemy somewhere out on their left. There were unconfirmed reports that there were German armoured cars on the roads but this proved to be French farm machinery.
 
The 15th Battalion hurriedly took up position at Hebuterne, north of the city of Albert, on the left flank of the Australian line. The situation was deadly serious. On 11th April, Field Marshall Haig issued his famous order of the day in which he stated that “with our backs to the wall………each one of us must fight to the end.” The main thrust of the German forces was directed at the village of Villers Bretonneux, from which their heavy guns could bombard Amiens. The critical situation was somewhat relieved when two brigades of Australian Infantry drove the German occupiers out of the village on Anzac Day 1918. Amiens was safe, but the Germans were in no way defeated.
 
The 15th Battalion, in company with the other three battalions of the 4th brigade continued to rotate in and out of the front line for the next month. The battalion war diary records that on almost every day while in the line, there was enemy shelling. On 12th May. James Bonding received shrapnel wounds to his legs and a compound fracture of his right thigh as a result of a shell burst close to his position. James was evacuated to the 12th Field Ambulance by stretcher bearers before being moved on to the 47th Casualty Clearing Station near Crouy-Saint -Pierre. On 20th May, James died of his serious wounds and was buried in a cemetery adjacent to the CCS. He was 19 years old. The cemetery would eventually be named Crouy British Cemetery.
 
Agnes Bonding received a parcel of her son’s personal effects which included a fountain pen, a knife, several wallets, a diary and a German button. She was also granted a pension of one pound per fortnight. Agnes also requested 12 photographs of her son’s grave which bore the following inscription:
HIS DUTY DONE
AFTER STORM COMES PEACE
LOVINGLY REMEMBERED BY ALL