SAPPER JAMES JOSEPH HALLINAN
5873 – 3rd Tunnelling Company
James P Hallinan was born on 2 April 1895 in Sydney, New South Wales. He was the son of Martin and Margaret (nee Conway) Hallinan.
As James Joseph Hallinan he signed the ‘Attestation Paper of Persons Enlisted for Service Abroad’, and the Oath to ‘well and truly serve’, on 1 May 1916 at West Maitland, New South Wales. A medical examination on the same day found him to be ‘fit for active service’ and recorded that he was 5ft 7ins tall and weighed 144 lbs. He had a fair complexion, grey eyes and dark hair.
A single Carpenter, having completed a 4-year apprenticeship with A. Burg & Sons of Bulwoora, West Maitland, New South Wales, James listed 3 years with the 14th Regimental Signallers (Militia) as previous military service.
He gave his Postal address as Redfern, New South Wales and named as his Next-of-Kin his mother Mrs Margaret Hallinan of 15 George Street, Waterloo, Sydney, New South Wales.
He began his training with the Newcastle Depot Battalion at West Maitland. On 5 May he was appointed to the Tunnelling Reinforcements and was sent by train to the A.I.F Depot at Broadmeadow, Victoria. He was transferred to the Miners Reinforcements training camp at Seymour, Victoria on 5 July 1916.
516 Tunnellers Reinforcements departed Melbourne, Victoria on October 25, 1916 at 1.30pm aboard the transport HMAT A38 Ulysses, James Hallinan being one of them. The Australian coastline disappeared from view on October 30, 1916 with the port of Durban reached at 11.30am on November 13, 1916. They felt the effects of the wind going around the Cape and arrived at Cape Town at 7am on November 19. Freetown in Sierra Leone was the next port of call where they arrived on 29 November. Their departure was delayed until December 14, 1916 as it was not safe to proceed further. Ulysses arrived at Plymouth, England on December 28, 1916, after 65 days at sea, with the troops disembarking at 1.30pm and entraining for Tidworth.
5798 Sapper George Oxman, (later of the 3rd Australian Tunnelling Company) recorded the voyage in his Diary:
Dec 5. It took 1½ hours to take 1000 men ashore for the afternoon. We have to pay 6d each for the loan of the punts. We were fastened with ropes with one punt to the other coming back, the rope broke and we were drifting out pretty quick but the tug boat soon had us back again. Not too clean of a place. The women stand in a stream and wet their clothes they are washing and place them on a flat stone and then belt into them with a flat piece of wood like a bat.
Dec 9. Had to get some coal and fresh water. The officers went ashore to buy some fruit to sell to us they wouldn’t let us buy off the natives so when they came back with the fruit - none of us would buy it off them.
Dec13. 29 Big boats in here now.
Dec 14. Left for England with four other transport auxiliary cruiser escorting us.
Dec 25. On the sea between Gibraltar and England it has been very foggy. We had roast pork for Christmas dinner and some baked scones. They were as hard as rock.
Dec 26. Very foggy torpedo boats came to escort us in the rest of the way. Got our kit bags out of the holds.
Dec 28. We had nothing to eat from 7.30am to 3.30pm. We had to buy some cakes during the last week on the boat. We held the Dead March on a roast they gave us (250 of us) for our dinner. We marched up to the top deck with it, all the rest of the men were watching us and laughing. We got roared up a bit after it but we didn’t care.
Got on the train at 4pm. Got to Perham Downs camp at 11pm. Nothing to eat from the military until 8 or 9 the next morning. Then we had two tablespoons of boiled salmon and spuds and a mug of tea. Mud from 1-6 inches deep.
James proceeded overseas to France from the Australian Details Camp at Perham Downs on 27 January 1917 and marched in to the Australian General Base Depot (AGBD) at Etaples on 29 January. He was absorbed into and taken on strength of the 3rd Australian Tunnelling Company on 6 February 1917.
He reported sick on 10 February 1918 and was admitted to the 2nd Canadian Field Ambulance. James was transferred to the 6th Casualty Clearing Station on the same day and on 14 February he was transferred by Ambulance Train 28 to the 39th General Hospital at Havre.
Discharged to duty on 30 March 1918, he marched in to the AGBD at Rouelles and on 4 April he marched out to rejoin his unit on 6 April.
James enjoyed some leave from 13 for 27 December 1918, rejoining his unit on 28 December.
He marched out of 3ATC on 6 May 1919 for return to Australia and sailed for England on 9 May, marching in to No.4 Camp on 11 May.
James, with 31 other Tunnellers for company, left England on 4 July on board Frankfurt, disembarking in Melbourne, Victoria on 20 August 1919. Having travelled to Sydney by train, he was discharged from the A.I.F. on 6 October 1919, entitled to wear the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
James J Hallinan married Lily M. O’Connell in Sydney in 1924.
Past members of the Australian Electrical & Mechanical Mining & Boring Company and Tunnellers Companies gathered on or about Anzac Day for a reunion luncheon. We have had access to some of their records, which were very well kept and are quite detailed.
James Hallinan first appears on their list in 1928 giving his address as 26 Hammersmith Street, Flemington. His address is the same for the 1934 and 1968 entries.
His wife Lily died in 1959.
In May 1962 his military medical records were forwarded to the Repatriation Commission, Sydney.
James Hallinan was one the 12 ‘Old Comrades’ to attend the last formal reunion luncheon on Anzac Day 1974.
The photo below, courtesy Neil Coleman, Yorkshire, England, shows Neils’ great uncle Paul Collis (1ATC – centre, with beer in hand) and Roy Nilsson (AEMMBC – 2nd from left, sitting), and Jim Hallinan – (3ATC – standing far right). The other men are unfortunately unidentified at this time.
James Patrick Hallinan died in Sydney on 20 January 1995 at age 99.
In February 1987, James Hallinan was interviewed by John Shields for the NSW Bicentennial Council to the Oral History Association of Australia. Cassette recordings and transcripts of that interview are held by the NSW State and National Libraries. Extracts of the interview relevant to James’ war service reproduced below were taken from National Library of Australia:
JAMES HALLINAN INTERVIEWED BY JOHN SHIELDS IN THE NSW BICENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION [SOUND RECORDING] - TRC 2301/22 (transcript)
John Shields: Where did you enlist?
James Hallinan: I enlisted in West Maitland.
John Shields: And what happened to you then after you enlisted?
James Hallinan: When I enlisted at West Maitland, examined by the doctor. As soon as I signed the papers I'd serve my God, king and country and all the rest of it along with other fellows in that particular parade, my first port of call was on the Maitland Showground and the first two nights down there on the Maitland Showground we slept in the deserted horse stables that the show horses would be in and we were given a bag of straw which they call a palliasse in the arm. A palliasse of straw and a blanket, one blanket, and we spent two nights there. Then we were transferred from the Maitland Showground to the Newcastle Showground and there was thousands of soldiers from around about Newcastle and all the other places being in training in Newcastle Showground. Now our first place of accommodation with the party that I was with was on the bare seats in the grandstand at Newcastle Showground. Well then we were bein' trained for different paths there and it was almost a daily affair of, 'Alright, well now', the officers would call out, 'we want volunteers for the infantry', maybe. 'Now are there any volunteers for the light horse? Alright fall out please volunteers. Any volunteers for the artillary?' Well you'd automatically fall out if you want to. And anyhow they stopped there, so some of the officers come around and some of the fellows? there, there was others there, 'Well we're signallers, we're in the signalling and cycling school. We joined the signalling core.' 'Oh well', he said, 'the signalling core is not taking any more recruits.' And the signalling core training camp was in Kiama Showground, do you see. Well they didn't want any more signallers because they had enough signallers. Well then another fellow came around, a Captain Richards. He was calling for volunteers. You see we were called up for home service but by them calling for volunteers that was for volunteers overseas and they couldn't send us overseas but we could volunteer on their invitation. So anyhow recalling this Captain Richards, he said, addressing the crowd, he said. 'Are there any miners here? Hands up the miners. Anybody work in the mines?' So a lot of my mates that I knew around Maitland and Kurri Kurri and Cessnock, they put up their hands. 'Righto fall out.' And one fellow in particular said, 'Come on Jim' he said. 'No' I said, 'be buggered ... we went to join the signalling training down at Kiama.' But we were told plainly they wasn't asking for volunteers so this captain came over and he said, 'Are you a miner.' And two of my mates said, 'Oh, he worked with us. He wasn't workin' down below. He used to go down there sometimes but he was mainly working up around about the pit top.' 'Come on', he says, 'we want men like you. We don't want all facemen over there. We want men of all trades in the miners core.' So anyhow we went over and yes we volunteered then to go into the miners core. Well then after a period they transferred us from Newcastle Showground to Seymour training camp in Victoria. So we travelled by train to Sydney and overnight we eventually finished up in Seymour camp in Victoria, sixty miles south of Melbourne. Anyhow we went over there and we were doin' training work for the miners cores using explosives and shafts and trench work and sandbag filling and all the rest of it and going out and boring holes in the ground and putting gun cotton in. You see when you drill a hole down, well a lot of dirt goes down there and there may be water in there. Well you bull the hole. Now to bull the hole after you've gone down the depth, you're going to lay a land mine, well alright, you go down and you get down there alright! 'that'll be deep enough.' You put what they call the bull. Now the bull is a plug of gun cotton fixed to a wire and a detonator on the end of the wire was put in to the plug of gun cotton. That's lowered down ... You plant it down, it goes down. Well then that lead goes over to what they call an exploder. It might be behind a tree or behind a wall. Well when they're ready they plunge that down and the result is that this bull that ... blows all the loose dirt and any water that is down there. As soon as the bull goes off the water has been blown out of it and the loose soil. You put the rear charge down there. Well that's what sort of training we got.
John Shields: What happened when your training finished. Did you go immediately?
James Hallinan: Well then we went through as the miners. Well they were training us as miners to go to Gallipoli. Well now something happened at Gallipoli and they didn't want miners there but they were sending the men from Gallipoli to France. Well now when they transferred to France they transferred them and changed their name from miners battalions to tunnelling companies. Well they picked us out at Seymour. We was to go as reinforcements. Number one, number two and number three companies were in France at the time, do you see, because they'd gone there from Gallipoli in Egypt. We were sent over there as reinforcements. Well I went. When we got there to England we went to camps on Salisbury Plain and we was picked out and then allocated to the companies, Australian companies, in France. And when we landed in France.
John Shields: When was that?
James Hallinan: That was in 1916, the end of 1916. When we arrived in France we had a long route. But anyhow we went up to, I forgot the town, the final camp. But anyhow it was up there and we got in the train in the dark of night in a snowstorm and we finished way up at the railway station by the name of Bethune and eventually some lorries picked us up there and took us up to our final company that we was attached to. Well then we were allocated each company had four sections. Number one, number two, number three and four sections. You see we were allocated as different sections but we were all in one company and that camp was in a place called New Amiens.
John Shields: When did you first see active service, what month was it?
James Hallinan: The first month of active service was, after the training we went through, was in January 1917 and by Jesus it was.
John Shields: Tell me something about it?
James Hallinan: Well, the first night having arrived in the darkness of night at the billet camp or the camp behind the line, the rest camp of this company, it was night time. Well now there was just a couple of officers there.