James Dilworth Bradley Mossman

https://ags.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/10311

TROOPER JAMES DILWORTH BRADLEY MOSSMAN, 1910
Auckland Mounted Rifles, 13/187B
Died 19th May, 1915

James Dilworth Bradley Mossman was born on 27th March 1894 in Gisborne. He was a son of William John Mossman and Marion Susan Spriggs.

At Grammar, James Dilworth Bradley Mossman served in the School Cadets. Leaving the School after two years, he took up sheep farming on the family farm. He had travelled to the United Kingdom on the Ceramic from Sydney, leaving just before the start of the war, and arriving in London on 20th August 1914. He joined the British Section of the N.Z.E.F. on 11th December 1914, sailing for Egypt the next day. Initially assigned to the Army Service Corps, Mossman was transferred to the Auckland Mounted Rifles on 17th February 1915. The Mounted troops initially remained in Egypt when the invasion force sailed for Lemnos, but they joined the main force at Anzac, on 12th May 1915. The Auckland men initially entered the front line at Walker’s Ridge on 18th May and it was here in the early hours of 19th May (not 25th May as stated in his Chronicle obituary) that Mossman was killed in action defending a fierce Turkish attack. He was buried by the Chaplain and the grave coordinates were carefully recorded in the Army records. This allowed his remains to be identified at the conclusion of the war, and he rests in the Walker’s Ridge Cemetery. James Mossman was 21 years of age. Mossman had two younger brothers, and two stepbrothers by his father’s earlier marriage to Mary Adele Stella Longdill, who had died in 1889. His brother, William Bertram Mossman, served in the Auckland Infantry Regiment, and his halfbrother, Pynson Wilmot Mossman, served in the Wellington Mounted Rifles. Both survived the war. However, his other half-brother, Thomas Henry Mossman, of the Otago Mounted Rifles, died of disease in Cairo, Egypt on 12th April 1915.

https://media.api.aucklandmuseum.com/id/media/public/c5d3e2f4-60a7-...

Trooper in AMR, file number 13/187b. Son of W. J. and Marion Mossman

Sources

1. New Zealand and World War One Roll of Honour: http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~sooty/genealogy/nzefrohMe.html / Ref 12.4.2021