Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

# 496 BRYCE Alexander James           11th Machine Gun Company
 
Alex Bryce was born in the Sydney suburb of Balmain to parents James and Mary Bryce. The family had sufficient resources to educate Alex at Sydney Grammar School. James and Mary Bryce moved to Ocean Road in Manly but Alex moved to the Western Downs where he began farming on a property named “Minachant” near Bell.
 
On 1st December 1914, Alex Bryce married Sarah Louise Portillo. The young couple lived at “Minachant” which may have originally been part of the Jimbour Station selection. Alex travelled down to Brisbane to enlist on 14th August 1916. He was given orders to report to Enoggera camp in six weeks’ time which gave him sufficient opportunity to put his affairs in order and to make a will. Alex reported to Enoggera on 2ndOctober 1916 and was placed in a depot battalion before being allocated as a reinforcement for the 25thBattalion. In November Alex was granted some home leave before being sent to the machine gun depot at Seymour in Victoria on 6th December. It is likely that Sarah took the opportunity to travel to Victoria also to stay with her family who lived at Kyabram, within a day’s train journey from Seymour. Sarah was carrying their first child, a girl who would be named Irene May. The baby would be born at Kyabram in April 1917.
 
Alex was placed in the 7th draft of reinforcements for the 11th Machine Gun Company on 14th February 1917 which operated the Vickers heavy machine gun. Five days later, the reinforcements took the train to Port Melbourne where they boarded the transport ship “Ballarat.” The embarkation roll for the 7th/11th MGCoy shows that Alex had allocated 4 shillings of his 5 shillings a day pay to his wife who remained with her family in Kyabram.
 
The “Ballarat” was a relatively new ship having been built in Scotland for the Peninsula and Orient Line and launched in 1911 as an immigrant ship bringing paying passengers from the UK to Melbourne. At the outbreak of war, the ship was requisitioned for troop transport duties between southern Australian Ports and Plymouth, sailing via South Africa and Sierra Leone. It was thought that the longer voyage via the Cape of Good Hope would reduce the possibility of encountering enemy submarines.
 
The coal that was available at Sierra Leonne was not the high quality Welsh coal that the Ballarat’s boilers were designed for and the poor quality coal slowed the voyage considerably as flames rose up to two metres out of the funnel; a beacon to marauding U-Boats. As the “Ballarat” approached the Lizard Rock off Cornwall on the 25th April 1917 the 1,700 Australian troops on board were mustered on the rear decks for an Anzac Day service when the ship was hit by a single torpedo fired from the UB-32. Escorting destroyers and torpedo boats, which were supposed to have protected Ballarat established a screen as the men calmly took to the boats and rowed out of harm’s way. Alex’s mother, when completing the Roll of Honour circular stated that Alex was one of five volunteers who rowed back to the stricken ship to retrieve the ship’s papers and mail. No lives were lost but the ship eventually sank in about 80 metres of water within sight of land, taking a cargo of copper, antinomy and gold bullion with it. The survivors landed at Plymouth later that same day.
 
The machine gun reinforcements proceeded to Parkhouse for initial reception before moving on to the machine gun depot at Grantham. On 22nd June, Alex reported to Southampton docks to board a ferry for the night crossing of the English Channel. Upon arrival in France, Alex was marched in to the machine gun depot at Camiers near the large British depot at Havre. On 22nd August, Alex was taken on strength by the 11th Machine Gun Company which was in billets in the area around Poperinghe in the rear areas of the Ypres salient.
 
The 11th MGCoy had spent the previous two and a half months in the Messines sector supporting infantry brigades which had been involved in the battle of Messines Ridge during June and July. The company had been withdrawn in early August to train and prepare for the next phase of the Ypres campaign which involved a series of assaults during September and October along the road from Ypres eastwards towards the village of Passchendaele.
 
The war diary of the 11th MGCoy records that at 8pm on the night of 19th September 1917, a German aircraft dropped five bombs on the tents of the 11th MGCoy in which the men were resting prior to lights out. The casualty list for the raid was attached to the war diary as an appendix and Alex Bryce is listed among the 9 killed and 42 wounded. Alex sustained serious shrapnel wounds to his legs, hips, hand and head. He was taken to the nearby #2 Canadian Casualty Clearing Station where he succumbed to his wounds the following day. Alex was 27 and he left a young widow and a daughter six months old who he had never seen. He was killed miles from the front line in an area considered to be reasonably safe from enemy action.
 
Alex was buried in the large Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery southwest of Poperinghe and eventually an inscription was added to his headstone; DEARLY LOVED.
 
A parcel of Alex’s personal effects was collected and despatched to his widow at Kyabram on the S.S. Barunga. In a cruel twist of coincidence, the Barunga was torpedoed just off the Scilly Isles, less than 50 miles from where Alex had been on the Ballarat when she was torpedoed in April 1917. Just as in the case of the Ballarat, no lives were lost on the Barunga but the cargo, which consisted of parcels of effects of some 5,000 Australians who had died in the war, was lost.
 
Sarah Bryce was fortunate that a second parcel of her husband’s effects was located in the kit store in London and this was despatched safely to her on the S.S. Toromeo. Sarah received Alex’s service medals, a memorial plaque and a commemorate scroll. She did not apply for a pension for herself or her daughter.