Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

James Logan enlisted under this alibi. His real name is not known. He enlisted in Queensland where he was working as a miner, under the name of his step brother, James Logan, who lived in Prahran, Melbourne. After the war his step brother wrote to the AIF and stated that ‘James Logan’ real parents were long deceased and that he, the real James Logan was the only one who had ever cared for him. The James Logan of Prahran was awarded his step brothers medals and entitlements.

James Logan took part raid on 1 February 1917, near Gueudecourt, when the 15th Battalion attacked a section of the German front line known as Stormy Trench. The party consisted of 150 men and six officers, or one and half companies. The attack started at about 7.00 p.m. on a frontage of about 500 yards. Although the enemy trenches were only 100 yards from the Australian lines, inadequate artillery support caused the attack to fail. A German counter attack at 11 p.m. was beaten off. In the face of relentless German shelling and bombing of the captured trenches, and a stronger German counter attack at 4.30 a.m. the Battalion was forced to retire. Although 52 German soldiers were captured, the 15th Battalion’s casualties were 33 men killed, 11 died of wounds over the next few weeks, many of those as prisoners, and over 20 others were captured by the Germans, without counting the wounded.

James was most severely wounded in the raid and died of a gunshot wound the abdomen in the 45th Casualty Clearing Station two days later on 3 February 1917.