Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

# 4991  COCHRAN James                               25th Battalion 

Note many of his records have mistakenly listed him as COCHRANE 
 
James Cochran was born in the small Scottish village of Dalry near Glasgow to parents Alexander and Janet Cochran. James and his elder brother, Alexander, attended school in Dalry. When James was 11 years old, the family emigrated to Queensland and took up farming in the Woodford area at Stanmore. James laboured on the farm as well as working as a mail coach driver.
 
James travelled to Brisbane and presented himself to the AIF recruiting office at Adelaide Street on 4thJanuary 1916. He told the recruiting officer he was 19 years old and a farm labourer. James named his mother, Janet, as his next of kin. The recruiting officer, when completing the attestation papers mistakenly added the letter “E” to the surname, as this is the more common spelling of the name. This error persisted throughout James’ service and was not corrected until his death.
 
James was posted to the Enoggera Camp where after a short time was allocated to the 13th reinforcements of the 25th Battalion. There was already a soldier named James Cochran at Enoggera in the 25th Battalion. He had also been born in Scotland and probably had the same Glaswegian accent; and was of a similar age. To avoid confusion, the two were placed in different drafts of reinforcements.
 
On 4th May 1916, # 4991 James Cochran embarked on the “Seang Choon” in Brisbane. The embarkation roll for the 13th reinforcements of the 25th Battalion shows James Cochrane (sic) had allocated 4/- of his daily pay of 5/- to his mother. The reinforcements landed at Suez a month later and went into temporary camp at Tel el Kabir before boarding a ship once more at Alexandria on 29th July for a voyage to England. Upon landing at Plymouth, the reinforcements made their way to the 7th Brigade Training Battalion at Rollestone on Salisbury Plain.
 
In December 1916, James and a group of reinforcements landed in France and were taken on strength by the 25th Battalion in the reserve positions near Bapaume. The 25th Battalion had had a pretty torrid time on the Western Front during 1916 and was in serious need of a period of rebuilding and training which continued through January and early February. The Germans had spent the winter of 1916/17 constructing an elaborate and formidable line of defences to the rear of the Somme battlefields which became known as the Hindenburg Line. In the spring of 1917, German forces began to withdraw from their old trenches on the Somme to this new position. The British forces began a cautious advance across frozen ground in pursuit of withdrawing German forces, coming across destroyed and booby-trapped villages and occasional retaliatory artillery barrages.
 
In the beginning of March, the 25th Battalion, in conjunction with other units of the 2nd Division AIF, came up against the bulk of the German withdrawal near the village of Noreuil. The situation stabilised but the British command wanted to continue to push up against the Hindenburg defences and the 25th was tasked with establishing forward outposts in no-man’s land with the purpose of gauging the enemy’s strength.
 
Probably while manning one of these outposts, James Cochran was killed on 20th March 1917 near Noreuil. James was 20 years old. He was buried by his companions on the battlefield in an isolated grave which was well marked. Janet Cochran was granted a pension of 30/- a fortnight.
 
At the end of the war, the Imperial War graves Commission set about consolidating isolated graves into permanent cemeteries. James’ remains were exhumed and he was reinterred in the Vaulx Hill British Cemetery near Bapaume. His family chose the following inscription for his headstone: HAVE MERCY UPON HIM LORD AND LET PERPETUAL LIGHT SHINE UPON HIM.