James HANSEN

HANSEN, James

Service Number: 5501
Enlisted: 4 January 1916, Brisbane, Queensland
Last Rank: Private
Last Unit: 9th Infantry Battalion
Born: Coominya, Queensland, Australia, 12 September 1888
Home Town: Wondai, South Burnett, Queensland
Schooling: Atkinson's Lagoon School, Coominya, Queensland, Australia
Occupation: Farmer
Died: Killed in Action, France, 24 April 1918, aged 29 years
Cemetery: Meteren Military Cemetery
Memorials: Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Banana War Memorial, Wondai Shire Honour Roll WW1
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World War 1 Service

4 Jan 1916: Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 5501, Brisbane, Queensland
20 Apr 1916: Involvement AIF WW1, Private, 5501, 9th Infantry Battalion, Enlistment/Embarkation WW1,

--- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '9' embarkation_place: Sydney embarkation_ship: SS Hawkes Bay embarkation_ship_number: '' public_note: ''

20 Apr 1916: Embarked AIF WW1, Private, 5501, 9th Infantry Battalion, SS Hawkes Bay, Sydney
24 Apr 1918: Involvement AIF WW1, Private, 5501, 9th Infantry Battalion, Villers-Bretonneux

Help us honour James Hansen's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.

Biography contributed by Faithe Jones

Son of James HANSEN and Marie nee NISSEN

Biography

"...5501 Private James Hansen, 9th Battalion. A farmer from Wondai, Queensland prior to enlistment, Pte Hansen embarked with the 17th Reinforcements from Sydney on SS Hawkes Bay on 20 April 1916. On 11 May 1918, aged 29, he was killed in action near Meteren, France and buried nearby. Following the Armistice, his remains were recovered and re-interred in the Meteren Military Cemetery, Meteren, France..." - SOURCE (www.awm.gov.au)

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Biography contributed by Ian Lang

 
# 5501 HANSEN James. 9th Infantry Battalion
 
James Hansen reported at his enlistment that he had been born at Coominya in the Brisbane Valley. He attended school at the nearby Atkinson’s Dam State School and then presumably worked on the family farm. James snr and Mary Hansen relocated their family to the Wondai district as blocks of land in the South Burnett became available for selection, establishing themselves at ‘Charlestown’ Wondai.
 
James attended the Brisbane Recruiting Depot in Brisbane on 4th January 1916. He stated his age as 27 years and advised that he had 4 years’ experience in the Australian Light Horse as a part time trooper. In spite of his Light Horse experience, James was allocated as a reinforcement for the 9th Infantry Battalion on 22nd March. One month later, the echelon of reinforcements travelled to Sydney by train before boarding the “Hawkes Bay” bound for Egypt. The reinforcements landed at Alexandria and transferred to the Australian camp at Tel el Kabir on the Suez Canal.
 
In July 1916, just as the great battle of the Somme was commencing in France, James sailed from Egypt to the southern French port of Marseilles and then travelled by train to the vast British Training and Transit Camp at Etaples near le Havre. He was taken on strength by the 9th Battalion at the end of July as the battalion was pulled out of the front line at Pozieres.
 
The 9th Battalion, part of the 7th brigade of the 1st Division AIF, was an all Queensland battalion which held the distinction of being the first ashore at Gallipoli on 25th April 1915. After success at Pozieres, the 1stDivision was withdrawn to occupy front line positions in Belgium before being posted back to the Somme for the winter. In the spring of 1917, the 1st Division pursued the German forces as they withdrew to the Hindenburg Line, coming up against the heavy defensive position at Lagnicourt and Bullecourt.
 
The failure to achieve a breakthrough on the Hindenburg Line prompted the British command to shift its focus north to the Ypres salient in Belgium. The four divisions of the AIF in France were all relocated to the rear areas on the French Belgian border for an extended rest followed by reorganisation and training for the next major campaign which is officially known as the 3rd Battle of Ypres, but is more widely known by a name that became synonymous with mud and slaughter; Passchendaele.
 
3rd Ypres began with an assault on the Passchendaele Ridge in June 1917. The 1st Division was not required for this epic battle in which 19 underground mines were blown and over three and a half million artillery shells were fired by the British, Australian and Canadian Artillery. Once Messines was secured, the real thrust of the campaign began, which involved a step by step advance across the Flemish plains from Ypres towards the village of Passchendaele.
 
Between September and November 1917, the 1st Division was put into the attack at Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde and Passchendaele. The attack against Passchendaele was, in hindsight, sheer folly. Heavy rains had turned the battlefield into a sea of sucking, stinking mud which sapped the strength of men long before they reached the frontline. Guns, wagons, men and mules became trapped in the ooze. The decision to continue the assault against Passchendaele would haunt General Douglas Haig’s reputation for the rest of his life.
 
With the closing of the Belgian Front for the winter, the Australians went into comfortable, warm billets in newly erected Nissen Huts around Poperinghe west of Ypres. Time was spent attending divisional baths for clean underwear and uniforms, cleaning and repairing equipment and sports such as rugby and association football. Some units that were well equipped with horses held race meetings at which bookmakers made a tidy sum. James Hansen spent some of the rest period on leave in England and on his return to his battalion, was sent of to a brigade training course. He resumed duty with the 9th on 17th January 1918.
 
The collapse of the Russian Front and subsequent peace treaty of December 1917 provided the German command with a force of up to 60 divisions which could be retrained and equipped during the winter in readiness for a spring offensive. The British Commander, General Haig, expected the main thrust of the offensive to be directed against Ypres and the Belgian ports and he kept his most experienced and battle hardened force, the AIF, in Belgium to meet the expected threat.
 
On 21st March, the Germans launched their offensive with most concentration of forces not in Belgium but on the Somme. Within days, all of the gains paid for so dearly with British and Dominion blood on the Somme in 1916 were back in German hands. General Haig, feared that if Amiens capitulated the Germans would win the war. He rushed his most dependable troops, the bulk of the AIF, south to the banks of the Somme and Ancre Rivers. At this time, Haig issued his famous ‘backs to the wall’ speech.
 
Haig was unwilling to weaken the line in Belgium entirely so he kept the 1st Division in the front line at Ploegsteert and Meteren just south of Messines. On the same day that the offensive began on the Somme, a smaller but no less intense offensive was launched across the Belgian front. On 24th April 1918, while manning a forward post at Meteren, James Hansen was killed when a “minenwerfer” shell landed on his position, killing him instantly.
James was buried nearby by his mates in ‘D’ Company. He was reported to be 27 but this is most likely an error. He would have been 29.
 
Under the conditions of James’ will, fifty pounds was granted to his sister Hilda Hansen of Wondai with the residual granted to his brother, William Peter Hansen of Wooroolin. James’ personal effects were packaged up and despatched to his mother as next of kin but the ship, S.S. Barunga, carrying the package, along with 5,000 other packages and bundles of personal effects was torpedoed off the Scilly Isles and sank without loss of life but with all cargo lost.
 
At the end of the war, the Imperial War Graves Commission began to consolidate the scattered burials from the war into larger permanent cemeteries. James remains were exhumed and reinterred in the Meteren Military Cemetery. His family chose a personal inscription for his headstone: SADLY MISSED

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