Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

He emigrated to Australia with his parents when he was 15 years old.

He was 21 and the son of John and Ada Sarah Martin of Cuballing, Western Australia and a nephew of Major E.J. Coles (Salvation Army), London.

At the time of the 1901 census the Martin family resided at Fairseat Lodge Cottage, Stansted, Kent, it being approximately eleven years prior to them emigrating to Australia. There is a strong possibility that they were immigrants as Lance Corporal Martin is recorded as a native of Stansted. Remaining in this country, and recorded in Wrotham and Meopham are several families of Martins which may well have had connections.

He is also commemorated on panel 114 of the Australian National War Memorial, Canberra, Australian Capital Territories, and on the Narrogin civic war memorial Western Australia. John is also named on the Cuballing civic war memorial Western Australia, which stands in the centre of this small Western Australian wheat belt community and upon which is engraved the names of fifty-one young men who lost their lives in the Great War. This community boasted the highest per capita enlistment in the state, with some locals even arguing that it was actually the highest enlistment rate in the British Empire.

The name "Private L.A. MARTIN" of the 28th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force is carved thus on the stone base of the Stansted, Kent parish/civic war memorial but this is no doubt a stone mason’s error.

The correct name, rank and number should be: Lance Corporal JOHN ALFRED MARTIN, 4489.

On the war memorial  in the parish church of St. Mary’s, Stansted he is correctly commemorated  as J.A. MARTIN.

Lance Corporal Martin was among the soldiers of five infantry divisions that the Australian Imperial Force deployed in France on the western front during the First World War. The AIF along with the allied armies were heavily committed in fighting off the German offensives of March and April 1918. The Australian forces were concentrated around Villers-Bretonneux, east of Amiens, and stabilized the front there.
In this fighting Lance Corporal Martin was killed in action on Wednesday, 22nd May, 1918, and is buried in the Méricourt-L'Abbé Communal Cemetery, some 6 kilometres south-east of Albert on the road to Amiens.

Aged 19 he enlisted in the 28th Battalion, Australian Imperial Forces, 7th Australian Infantry Brigade, on 6 March 1916, at which time he stated that he was a Farmer, and was residing at Narrogin, Western Australia, and that his next of kin Mrs Ada Sarah Martin was then residing at Cuballing, Western Australia. Only three and a half weeks after enlisting, John departed from the port of Freemantle, Western Australia on board the 8,130 ton H.M.T. Shropshire (A9). In peacetime the troopship was owned by the Federal Steam Navigation Company of London. John’s battalion was raised at Blackboy Camp, Western Australia on 16 April 1915 from recruits previously earmarked for the 24th Battalion, A.I.F. which was instead being raised in Victoria. The battalion left Australia in June, and, after two months spent training in Egypt, landed at Gallipoli on 10 September 1915. At Gallipoli, the 7th Brigade, which included the 28th Battalion, reinforced the weary New Zealand and Australian Division. The 28th Battalion had a relatively quiet time at Gallipoli and by the time that the battalion departed from the peninsula in December 1915 it had fortunately suffered only light casualties. After another period of service in Egypt, the 7th Brigade proceeded to France and the Western Front, as part of the 2nd Australian Division. The 28th Battalion took part in its first major battle at Pozières, Somme, between 28 July and 6 August 1916. After a spell in a quieter sector of the front in Belgium, the 2nd Division returned to the south in October, where the 28th Battalion took part in confused and costly fighting to the east of the village of Flers, in the Somme Valley. For many of the major battles that were fought throughout 1917 the 28th Battalion found itself in supporting roles. At the second battle of Bullecourt, the battalion provided reinforcements who were nonetheless involved in heavy fighting. The 28th Battalion went on to attack as part of the third phase at the ‘Battle of Menin Road,’ capturing its allotted objectives in just seven minutes, and was in reserve during the ‘Capture of Broodseinde Ridge.’ The battalion was also in reserve for the ‘Battle of Poelcapelle’ on 9 October 1917, but, with the attack floundering in the mud; it soon became embroiled in the fighting. In April 1918, John’s battalion fought to turn back the German Spring Offensive which had been launched on 21 March 1918, and it was during the continuation of this  that John fell in battle at Méricourt-L'Abbé on the Somme, after his battalion had relieved the 21st Battalion, Australian Imperial Forces there, at which time his battalion was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Currie, C.M.G., D.S.O.

From 8 August the 28th Battalion participated in the joint British and French offensive that marked the beginning of Germany’s eventual defeat. The Battalion was prominent in the fighting to secure crossing points over the Somme River around Peronne, and in the advance beyond Mont St. Quentin. The 28th’s last actions of the war were fought as part of the effort to break through the ‘Beaurevoir Line’ in the first week of October 1918. The first members of the battalion began returning to Australia in January, and the 28th Battalion was disbanded in March 1919. John is numbered amongst the 787 members of all ranks of his battalion who lost their lives during the Great War, in addition to which 2241 were wounded.

He is remembered on the village green civic/parish  war memorial in Stansted, Kent and also on the war memorial in Stansted (St. Mary’s) parish church- a marble wall plaque, with the names of the fallen and the inscription “Their name liveth for evermore,”

The village green memorial at the Plaxdale Green Road junction with Malthouse Road, Stansted is of a statue of a man holding up a 'peace' branch, fixed on top of a stone plinth, standing in a grassed area. The original by Alois Strool was stolen in 1995. It was replaced by the bronze figure by Faith Winter 13 months later. The names of the fallen are inscribed on the stone plinth.

On the north face of the plinth is the entire five-verse poem Recessional written at the time of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee on the 22nd June, 1897 by Rudyard Kipling which features at the end of the first four verses, the lines:

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!

John is one of two Australian Great War casualties to be so honoured; the other is Quartermaster-Sergeant Alexander Mann Kirton of the 11th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force who died 18th February,1916, aged 22.