DRIVER JAMES BUSHBY
AUSTRALIAN FIELD ARTILLERY
12TH AUGUST 1917 AGE 31
BURIED: VLAMERTINGHE NEW MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
The State Library of Western Australia has a collection of photographs entitled the Bushby Collection of Rosedale Farm, Cuballing, Western Australia. This is Driver James Bushby's family. James Bushby Senior arrived in Australia in 1885. His wife, Honour, came the following year with with their two children: Annie and her younger brother James Junior. In November 2015 the Cuby News, which covers the communities of Cuballing, Popanyinning and Yornaning, published an article by Stephen Bowes on the family and the sons who went to war.
Jim enlisted on 24 June 1915 at the height of the Gallipoli campaign, embarking from Australia on 18 November. The transport arrived in Suez in December by which time the Gallipoli Campaign was winding down. Bushby joined the 54th Battery Australian Infantry and went with them to France, arriving in June 1916. By the summer of 1917 the Battery were in Flanders. Bushby was killed on 12 August. His death is not mentioned by name in the war diary but it does record two soldiers killed that day.
Two other brothers also served, Fred was badly wounded in the chest in September 1917. After being hospitalised in England, he eventually returned to the front but in September 1918 went absent without leave. He was arrested five days after the war ended and sentenced to seven years penal servitude. This was suspended in April 1919 after he had spent some months working for the AIF Graves Detachment. The other brother, Alf, was also wounded and had a leg amputated.
Mrs Bushby chose her son's inscription, presumably quoting her son's sentiments if not his actual words: Father and mother weep not for me nor wish me back again.