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War Memorial
Australia

Sapper James “Jim” McDonald Short Biography

no 28 NSW 1st Div Sig Company

Letters from Gallipoli 1915

James Mcdonald joined the NSW 1st Division Signal Company and landed at Gallipolli via the HMAS Canadian troopship Minnewaska, at 11am ANZAC morning, April 25th, 1915.

During his time in Gallipoli, James Mcdonald would have at least four letters published in various Australian newspapers. He was quite a “pen-man” as he once described himself- thanks to his father's schooling.

On the morning of 25th April, 1915 just hours before the AIF landed at Gallipoli Sapper James McDonald wrote down his thoughts to pen…

Troopship Minnewaska, off Gallipoli Peninsula, Dardanelles, Saturday April 25,1915;

“I am taking the last chance I may get for a while to send you a line. You may not get this. I am getting one of the sailors to post it back when they go back. We are at anchor and at daylight tomorrow morning we land and attack the Turks who are entrenched on the hillside, close ashore in thousands. We are to get to the summit of that hill no matter what comes or goes.

Each man is carrying enough rations to last him three days. We have no spare blankets and no spare duds and it is a pretty cold place, our beds wont be too sultry for the first few nights. Snow is visible on the mountains quite close.

We won’t need the alarm clock in the morning as when the guns on the Warships get going the very earth rocks with the hellish noise; and as they will be shelling the enemy over our heads as we proceed to shore- we wont miss much of it. I’m in real good condition and will be able to combat the cold and wet all right.

In my next letter I hope to tell you something about the battle. Things are too unsettled to take horses and wagons ashore yet and tomorrow I am carrying a deuce of a load.”

A few weeks later on the 17th May 1915, he describes the experience of living in the trenches at Gallipoli…

“For three weeks we have been living in a hole for safety earnestly ducking and dodging flying metal of every description. When it is necessary to leave the “dugout". the enemy always have the habit of disturbing us at mealtimes, with a few nicely placed shrapnel shells.

We get plenty of good tucker and tobacco. The scarce items are water, shaves and matches"

Another of these letters was addressed to his father Thos’ McDonald, Headmaster of Shepardstown Public School and was published in the Gundagai Independent on the 7th December 1915, just after he had left the Gallipoli Peninsula.

A large extract of the letter is as follows;

LADS WHO ARE AT THE FRONT.
Very Newsy Letter;

Corporal McDonald writing to his father Mr Thos McDonald
Headmaster of the Public School Shepardstown, says:

“ My Company or rather its reminants is here (Lemnos) resting after 5 months solid work with Abdul. I left the Peninsula the same day by the field ambulance for the hospital, but have the satisfaction of having lasted it out with the best of them!

My infirmities I’ll tell you briefly;

1. Blown down a cliff by explosion, hurt back and stomach (remained on duty).
2. Dysentery; Battled it with chlorodyne (remained on duty)
3. Dugout blown –in and could only take liquid food after 1. and 2. Liquid food on active service means hot water or cold, whichever attracts the taste most with occasional spoonfuls of milk added.
4. Influenza bad- chucked in the towel; not too bad now except for stomach, which is in a state of wild rebellion

My Corporation of old is alas! As the Arabs say” Finished!" I am to be sent to a base hospital in Alexandria, Malta or England first chance to be dieted and treated. I am as weak as two cats. Anyhow I'm lucky to come back unpunctured after five months.

I stopped a shrapnel bullet just over the heart one evening. It made a fine bruise, but didn’t have enough speed up to penetrate my hide. One other day a shell blew dirt and stones into my dugout whilst I was asleep. My rifle was leaning in the corner and was knocked over. It gave me a most unholy crack on the head with egg-shaped results. I woke up wondering if I was dead this time, but the devil looked after his own though he seems most informally careless at times and I had reason to mention the fact many times in Arabic. French and Australian- the latter knocks the lot for expressiveness.

The Turks use to send over a bomb the size and shape of an association football, two tho three inches thick in the shell, filled with high explosive with a pole 5 feet long and 3 inches in diameter attached to it.

If you ever strike a Salvation Army Officer, Captain McKenzie (a braw Scot with our boys), help him bang the tambourine loud as a white man. After the memorable battle of Lone Pine the dead were being dragged down to three long deep trenches for burial in a place called “Browns Dip”. They couldn’t be carried - the smell was indescribable. Shrapnel suddenly began to burst in showers around these trenches and everybody cleared off the job until it slackened down. All except captain McKenzie who stood there bareheaded and unmoved reading the burial service over and over and now and again between the shell bursts one could hear the deep Scotch voice praying so fervently that it seemed heroic. This man has done so many things for the boys quite apart from religious matters, that anyone of them would do anything for him.

And finally Sapper James McDonald describes the sad state of his 1st Division Signal Company in a beautiful and solemn way…

“'It would have saddened your heart to have seen my Company and the few battered Australian Battalions that came here to rest, and to be made up to war strength again.
They went to Gallipoli bounding with life and laughter; they came back here worn and weary, silent and dogged, bedraggled, gaunt and unlovely.”

- Sapper James McDonald 7/12/1915


As a Sapper (signaller), his highly dangerous job was to lay telegraph wires through the trenches at Gallipoli. He states in his other letters that he was shot (but only bruised) and was also blown down a cliff by a shell but did not sustain any major physical injury. However this incident set-off the beginnings of neruathrusia (or shell shock-shattered nerves). This condition would affect the rest of his life. After five months in Gallipoli he was sent to several recovery “Camps” suffering bad-nerves, malnutrition, influenza and other ailments. He did not get any proper hospital treatment for six months and thus never fully recovered from his ordeal. Like many soldiers, James would return to Australia a changed man.

After Gallipoli…

After the war, James returned to Queanbeyan via Melbourne and was welcomed as an invalided war-hero at various returned –soldiers functions. He lived for a short time in Queanbeyan before finding work at Goulburn wheat stalls for about 6 months. Soon afterwards James was re-employed as a Telegraphist with Goulburn Post office in the telegraph department. He would work there for the next 12 years. (Excluding a short 6 months relieving stint at Cootamundra Post office in 1927). During his time at Cootamundra James also became only one of the few NSW telegraphists to achieve a pass as a 4th grade telegraphist.
James was constantly battling to maintain his war pension for his family and had many battles with the Repatriation office trying to prove his physical state was caused by his war-service. In the late 1920s he began drinking heavily to suppress his shattered nerves but always held his job as a telegraphist. Eventually he was sent to Randwick Military Hospital for treatment. (1929). Domestic worries and James’s increased drinking would have made family life very difficult during the 1920s.
In 1931, James was transferred from Goulburn to the Sydney GPO where he would continue to work until his retirement in about 1948. After years of struggle his wife Adelaide separated from him in about 1936 but kept in regular contact. His daughter “Billy” would visit him & helped to look after his affairs. James had also developed bad arthritis. He began residing at 8 Nicholson Street, Tempe in Sydney, not far from today’s Sydney airport. He would have travelled by train from Tempe to the Sydney GPO each day.
James probably retired from his telegraphist work during WW2 about 1944-1945. He would continue to live alone however would still be on good terms with his wife Adelaide and daughter Billy. During this time his arthritis became severe.

On the 13th of July 1951, his daughter Edna (“Billy”) called in for a visit to his apartment at 8 Nicholson Street Tempe. On arrival she noticed that the doors were jammed shut and a hose was leading from the gas main to the lounge room. Greatly concerned about her father she called the local police who came to investigate. A short time later, they found James McDonald 68 years old, dead on his lounge. James had left a note for the police saying; “arthritis unbearable, sorry to cause trouble.”

After a Coroners inquest into his death a report came back as “wilful death caused by carbon dioxide coal gas poisoning”. His wife Adelaide also appealed to the War Department who agreed that his death was also caused by his ANZAC WW1 service at Gallipoli. Hence a plaque was placed at the beautiful Garden of Remembrance, War section at Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney.

Sapper James McDonald was born in Armidale, NSW on the 11th of November 1883. He attended Gundaroo Public School while his father was teaching there. After he left school he became a Telegraphist and around 1900, met Maria Hall Adelaide Naylor in Queanbeyan, whose family were located at Captain’s Flat near Canberra.

In 1908, he left Gundaroo to travel to his new job at Wilcannia, NSW. While in Wilcannia, he married Adelaide Naylor and they had 3 children. The children’s names were Mary Isobel (Jean 1909), Edna May (Billy 1910) and Thomas (Tom or Sandy 1911).

In 1914 while working in Walla Walla, James (at the age of 30), volunteered to enlist in WW1. His service no. was 28 of the NSW 1st Division Signal Company. James was trained at Broadmeadows in Victoria, before setting out from Melbourne to Gallipolli on the HMAS A10 Karroo.(below). He returned to Australia on the ship HMAS “Runic” (1916).

As a Sapper (signaller), his highly dangerous job was to lay telegraph wires through the trenches at Gallipoli. He was awarded the 1914/15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

His war record (which is held at the War memorial National Archives in Canberra) suggests like many other soldiers, he suffered from “shellshock’’ or post-traumatic stress. This condition affected the rest of his life.

During the war he also travelled to Malta, Imbros and Giza in Egypt.

After the war, he worked and lived mainly at Union Street Goulburn, until he was transferred to Sydney (Tempe & Dulwich Hill) in 1931. He died on the 13th of July 1951, aged 67, and a plaque was placed at the Garden of Remembrance, war section at Rookwood Cemetery (his ashes scattered)

His wife Adelaide Mcdonald died in 1966 (ashes also scattered)