James Kay
History
James Alexander Kay was born at Burrumbeet in April 1893, the first-born son of Hugh Kay and Christina McLeod. He was to be the eldest of their three children. He enlisted for service during World War One on 8 September 1916. He sailed from Port Melbourne onboard HMAT Ulysses on 25 October when he sailed with reinforcements to the 6th Machine Gun Company. On 07 September 1917 they left England for France, Jim having been appointed lance-corporal only a few days before the trip. He was bound for the Ypres Salient, with his new unit – the 24th Machine Gun Company – and the Battle of Passchendaele. He died three weeks later.[1]
On 29 September 1917 James Kay and John Lamb were on the same machine gun in front of the German pillbox known as ANZAC House – a prominent position near Garter Point in Polygon Wood. Both had attended Burrumbeet State School together. During the fighting a shell landed alongside the pair burying them together. Several men, including Private Martin Share, raced to help dig them out. But it was all to no avail; they were dead. A number of witnesses stated that there wasn’t a mark on them – they had apparently suffocated. Private Share was one of those who then helped to bury the two young gunners; they were buried where they had fallen. Andrew McIntyre, a friend from school days, witnessed the events wrote home to the families.[2]
After the cessation of hostilities the newly formed Imperial War Graves Commission, greatly aided by teams of soldiers awaiting repatriation home, combed the battlefields looking for the remains of the fallen. Their painstaking efforts at locating, exhuming and attempting to identify the bodies. Unfortunately, when exhumation work was conducted around ANZAC House, only the remains of Jim Kay could be formerly identified. His body was removed to Oxford Road Cemetery for proper burial. In all likelihood the body of Jack Lamb was discovered at the same time, but, without adequate identification on the body, he would have been re-buried as an “Unknown Soldier of the Great War”; his name was later added to the Menin Gate memorial to the missing of the Salient.[3]
Legacy
The World War One service of James Alexander Kay was recognised on the Ballarat Avenue of Honour.
See also
Notes
- COMRADES KILLED.
- BURRUMBEET. Sunday.
- A gloom was cast over Burrumbeet on Thursday afternoon, when it became known that two of its young men, Lce-Cpl James Kay and Pte Jack Lamb, had been killed in action in France. They enlisted together, trained together, and were both killed on the same day, 29th September. The trees planted for them in the Avenue of Honor on the Burrumbeet road stand side by side. Much sympathy is felt for the bereaved parents of each soldier...'
- …In the United Kingdom of Great Britain there were few homes today where there were not aching hearts owing to the mighty brave and true who had fallen in the defence of our Empire. And now it was Australia's turn to lament, for nearly everywhere some friends had gone. We were beginning as never before to realise the horrors and tragedy of war. Behold how the mighty have fallen! Among them were two young men who associated with that congregation. Gunners J. Kay and J. Lamb sometime ago heard the call of the Empire, and responded to that call, believing that it was their duty to do so. They went to school together, were close companions during their young manhood here, enlisted at the same time, went through their training together, sailed for the distant field of duty together, side-by-side on the bloodstained battlefield. They lived and fought and died together. He noticed that their names were together on the Avenue of Honor between there and Ballarat. David might have said of them as he did of Saul and Jonathan, they were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided. These two affectionate sons and brothers, and brave, true soldiers of our beloved, king, had paid the supreme sacrifice. For greater love, saith He, Hath, no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends…
References
- ↑ https://www.facebook.com/GreatWarBallarat/posts/1837996252913308, accessed 28 March 2018.
- ↑ https://www.facebook.com/GreatWarBallarat/posts/1837996252913308, accessed 28 March 2018.
- ↑ https://www.facebook.com/GreatWarBallarat/posts/1837996252913308, accessed 28 March 2018.
Further Reading
External links
https://www.facebook.com/GreatWarBallarat/posts/1837996252913308
--Beth Kicinski 11:21, 23 August 2013 (EST); --Clare K.Gervasoni 19:48, 28 March 2018 (AEDT)