Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

"Colonel J. A. Milne, D.S.O.

He has been awarded the Distinguished Service Order 'for keeping the front line well supplied with stores, munitions, and water, although his party was constantly depleted by casualties and exhaustion.' His home is at 162 Alice-street, Newtown, Sydney." - from the Sydney Mail 05 Sep 1917 (nla.gov.au)

"The Late Lieut.-Colonel J. A. Milne, D.S.O.

He was killed in action in France on April 12. Colonel Milne left Queensland in September, 1914, as a captain in the 9th Battalion, and was present at the landing on Gallipoli, where he was severely wounded. On recovering he returned to the firing line, and was promoted to major. Some time later he contracted fever, and was invalided to Australia. Later he returned to the front, this time to France as second in command of a battalion. He was then promoted to lieutenant-colonel, and was given command of another battalion, known as "Carmichael's (original) Thousand.'' At Messines he was gassed, but stuck to his post, and for his bravery was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. Afterwards he was twice mentioned in despatches. Lieut.-Colonel Milne has left a widow and three sons, the eldest of whom is on active service abroad." - from the Sydney Mail 22 May 1918 (nla.gov.au)

"LIEUT.-COLONEL J. A. MILNE, Son-in-law of Mr. and Mrs. F. B. Bull, of Bundaberg, killed in action in France on April 12. Before the war Lieutenant-Colonel Milne was officer commanding the Wide Bay Regiment, and sailed with the original 9th Battalion, being wounded in the landing at Gallipoli, and was later again wounded on the Peninsula." - from the Queenslander 29 Jun 1918 (nla.gov.au)

Born Woodside, Cromar 23 Mar 1872 Educated Torphins School. Arrived in Brisbane in August 1890 on the Dorunda. Worked as a farm labourer in the Wide Bay district, he was a miner 1897 and then an engine driver on the Gympie goldfield and in 1903-1906 was a farmer at Kilkivan junction. He became a commercial traveller for hardware firms, based at Maryborough and from 1908 at Bundaberg, where he established a commission agency in 1913 and was a dealer for the International Harvester Company. An excellent rifle shot was from 1908 an officer in the Wide Bay’s Regiment 1st Bn (later the 4th Infantry Bn). Enlisted Bundaerg, Queensland, in 9th Bn Australian Imperial Force as a captain 20 August 1914 and sailed on the first troopship to leave Queensland. On 25th April 1915 took “E” Company ashore at Gallipoli; although wounded five times he continued to encouraging his men until he collapsed and was dragged down to the beach where it was realised he was still alive. After treatment in hospital he returned to Gallipoli but on 11 November, two days after his promotion to major, he was evacuated because of fever and in January 1916 was invalided to Australia. After enthusiastic civic welcomes in Maryborough and Bundaberg he resumed duty on 1st May 1916 and was appointed second in command of the 41st Bn. Reaching France in November, he was promoted Lieut-Colonel and given command of the 36th Bn on 24th February 1917. Gassed at Messines, and injured by a shell at Passchendaele.

He was 46 and the son of Alexander & Jane (nee McCombie) Milne, Husband of Elsie M Milne, McKenzie Street, Banktown, NSW. 

Decorations and Awards
DSO Volume III Page 306 his DSO Awarded for gallantry at St Yves 7th-12th June. 
London Gazette 25-8-17.

There are five Australian soldier casualties of the Great War honoured on the Kincardine O'Neil war memorial and also a Pilot Officer of the Royal Australian Air Force  who died in WWII.

Kincardine O'Neil - Kincardine & Deeside District 
UKNIWM Ref No. 5854 

The people of Torphins decided to build a memorial hospital and it was named the Kincardine O'Neil Memorial Hospital. It is therefore possible that the names listed on this Kincardine O'Neil memorial are the same as those listed on the Torphins monument.

The Kincardine O'Neil war memorial is a rustic granite pillar with a pinkish hue set on a pedestal with an inverted sword carved in shallow relief on the face of the pillar. The pedestal is set into a rough cairn of tumbled boulders. The commemoration and names of the dead are listed on dressed granite tablets set into the face of the pedestal. 
The monument stands in gardens by the roadside of the A93 in the village.

The others are:

Private WILLIAM BEWS,   493 31st Bn Australian Infantry 

Trooper JOHN WILLIAM  GAVIN, 1385 Australian Expeditionary Force, 9th Light Horse 

Private GEORGE GORDON, 1683 50th Bn Australian Infantry.

L/cpl JOHN THOMSON,  1273 Australian Army Medical Corps 15th Field Ambulance 

Pilot Officer WILLIAM GEORGE CRUICKSHANK, Royal Australian Air Force 

From François Berthout

Lieutenant Colonel John Alexander Milne
36th Australian Infantry Battalion,
9th Brigade, 3rd Australian Division
 
Through the silent fields of the Somme which sway in harmony under the spring sun, stand solemn thousands of white graves, the final resting places of a whole generation of men who on these sacred grounds of France shed their blood and gave their today for peace and freedom for which they fought with such bravery without regard for their own lives to allow future generations to live in a better world. In the trenches and through the barbed wire, they charged without fear, bayonets forward , with determination they faced their destinies shoulder to shoulder with in their hearts the pride of having done what was right and of having served their country until their last breath for our tomorrow and today, more than a hundred years after the fury of the great war, they stand tall among the poppies that remind us that for us, millions of young boys paid the supreme sacrifice but will never be forgotten and that with respect and honor I will always watch over them so that their memory and their names, so that who they were and what they did for us will never be forgotten, for them the light will always shine.

Today, it is with the deepest respect and infinite gratitude that I would like to honor the memory of one of these men, one of my boys of the Somme who gave his today for our tomorrow.I would like to pay a very respectful tribute to Lieutenant Colonel John Alexander Milne who fought in the 36th Australian Infantry Battalion, 9th Brigade, 3rd Australian Division, and who was killed in action 104 years ago, on April 12, 1918 at the age of 46 on the Somme front.

John Alexander Milne, farmer, agent and soldier, was born on 23 March 1872 at Woodside, Cromar, Aberdeenshire, Scotland,and was the son of Alexander Milne, labourer, and Jane McCombie, and was educated at Torphins School. He arrived in Brisbane as a free immigrant on the Dorunda in August 1890. Initially a farm-labourer in the Wide Bay district, he was a miner in 1897 and then engine-driver on the Gympie goldfield, and in 1903-1906 a farmer at Kilkivan Junction. He became a commercial traveller for hardware firms, based at Maryborough and from 1908 at Bundaberg, where he established a commission agency in 1913 and was a dealer for the International Harvester Company of Australia Pty Ltd.
An excellent rifle-shot, Milne was from 1908 an officer in the Wide Bay Regiment's 1st Battalion (later the 4th Infantry Battalion). He enlisted in the 9th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, as a captain on August 20,1914 and sailed on the first troopship to leave Queensland.

On April 25, 1915 Milne took "E" Company ashore at Gallipoli; although wounded five times he continued encouraging his men until he collapsed and was dragged down to the beach where it was realized he was still alive. After treatment in hospital he returned to Gallipoli but on November 11, two days after his promotion to major, he was evacuated because of fever and in January 1916 was invalided to Australia.

After enthusiastic civic welcomes in Maryborough and Bundaberg, Milne told in recruiting speeches, "cheered to the echo", of his pleasure in leading such men as the Australians, unveiled the honour board of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Bundaberg, and enjoyed a short fishing holiday at Urangan. On May 1, 1916 he resumed duty with the A.I.F. and was appointed second-in-command of the 41st Battalion. Reaching France in November, he was promoted lieutenant-colonel and given command of the 36th Battalion on February 24, 1917. Gassed at Messines, and injured by a shell at Passchendaele, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in August 1917 for "great capacity and initiative" and was mentioned in dispatches in December with the following citation:
"For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He showed great capacity and initiative in commanding his battalion when on carrying party duty he kept the front line well supplied with stores,ammunition and water,and arranged for the relief of the parties in a most efficient manner although constantly depleted by casualties and exhaustion."

In March 1918 Milne successfully organized and executed two important raids on German defences near Warneton, and at Villers-Bretonneux on April 4 led a spectacular bayonet charge. Generals Birdwood, Goddard, Monash and Rosenthal appreciated Milne's achievements but before receiving official recognition he was killed on April 12, 1918 by a shell at Hangard,near Villers-Bretonneux,Somme.

Today, Lieutenant Colonel John Alexander Milne rests in peace alongside his men, comrades and brothers in arms at Heath Cemetery, Harbonnieres, Somme, and his grave bears the following inscription: "Out of the stress of doing into the peace of done."

Strong, broad-shouldered, seemingly fearless, with a powerful voice and marked Scots accent, the sandy-haired Milne was well liked and respected by his troops. A rugged individualist, with little respect for formality though a rigid disciplinarian, he was an eminently practical and competent soldier with a strong sense of duty.

On October 6, 1898 at Kilkivan Junction, Queensland, in a Primitive Methodist ceremony performed by Rev. John Adamson, Milne had married Mary Elise May Bull who, with their three sons, survived him.

John, Sir, you who proudly led the Australians into battle and who fought alongside them, closer to them in the trenches and who for them gave his today on the battlefields of the Great War, I would like from the bottom of my heart to express to you my gratitutde and my respect for all that you have done for my country and for Australia which is also my adopted country and which have been linked for a hundred years in an unfailing friendship and a mutual respect which was born in the trenches of the Somme and the north of France where the poppies of remembrance tirelessly grow, reminding us through their red petals that here fought and fell a whole generation of brave men like you who gave their today and who shed their blood side by side without distinction of rank in the mud and in the barbed wire that mutilated once peaceful lands on which the scars and violence of war are still visible on the he old battlefields that were relentlessly and mercilessly swept and pulverized by tons of shells that buried thousands of young boys alive and who today stand proudly where they fell, united forever in silence and peace, in the camaraderie in which, more than a hundred years ago, they found strength and the courage to stand against the hurricanes of screaming metal, in the fury and brutality of the slaughterhouses that were the battles of Gallipoli, Messines, Passchendaele and Villers-Bretonneux, eternal symbols of the courage and sacrifices of the Australians who fought fiercely alongside their French brothers-in-arms under the sinister roar of artillery and planes that tore the sky with their steel wings and their heads held high, proud and brave, they moved forward behind the tanks, monsters of powerful and slow steel that crushed the enemy lines under their metal caterpillars that made the earth and the hearts of men tremble. Together, behind officers as brave as John, thousands of young boys found the faith and confidence to give their best and ran with determination under the ruthless and deadly fire of enemy machine guns that spat death and rains of lead and in the face of which so many heroes fell with their eyes skyward in a last breath of life and in a heavy silence which saw whole waves being broken through the barbed wire which was nothing more than a sea of men and of blood under the helpless gaze of their friends and their brothers who saw them being crushed and mowed down in these putrid quagmires above which hovered the smell of death that awaited them.

In this world that slowly sank into madness and despair, these bravest among the bravest held their positions and resisted with exceptional bravery, they fought at the gates of hell but never took a step back despite the enemy assaults, despite leaden hail and firestorms they held on meter by meter, they fought and died together doing their duty without ever giving up and made their country proud but also France and their French brothers who saw in each of them the bravest men they had ever seen.In the Somme, the French people felt for the Diggers a deep love, a sincere respect, an admiration and an unfailing confidence which can be expressed in a testimony written by an Australian soldier as follows:

"Strictly no civilian was allowed within 12 miles of the front line but, in spite of this, one old peasant and his middle-aged daughter continued to live and work their fields near our waggon lines. I was talking to our brigade interpreter, a Frenchman, one evening as we passed them. The interpreter stopped them and started yarning. He questioned him about being allowed to stay so close to the line and was he not afraid of being overrun by the Germans? He replied that everyone knew he was an honest and loyal Frenchman and there was no need to worry about the Germans getting through with Australian infantry in front of him ... "I know in my heart they will never cross this ground again. I know because a German Uhlan officer who billeted himself and his men on us told me laughingly that two battalions of Australian infantry were then marching through Amiens to drive back the whole German Imperial Army! We buried him that afternoon with several of his men while the Germans were being driven back through Villers-Bretonneux."

More than a hundred years have passed but in Amiens, in Pozieres and in Villers-Bretonneux, we have and will always have for the Diggers and for the Australian people, a deep love and respect and are proud of the friendship which unites us today in the remembrance, around a whole generation of young men on whom I will always watch with fidelity, with love and respect so that their names and their memory live forever. Thank you so much John, for everything. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember him, we will remember them.

I would like to warmly and respectfully thank Mrs Betty Crouchley for her invaluable help without which I would not have been able to write this tribute.