First Published on Facebook Nillumbik Shire Council – Nillumbik Chronicles #17, 7 November 2014
In the lead up to Remembrance Day, let’s take time to remember a young man from Panton Hill, a labourer who enlisted in February 1916.
Private William John O’ Day stood only 5’4” tall, had blue eyes and had a scar on his right ankle. With the 59th battalion, William John arrived in Marseilles on 29 June 1916. He was killed during the battalion’s attack on German positions at Fromelles 3 weeks later, aged 19. He has no known grave.
In 1920 William John’s mother Minnie O’Day wrote to the army asking if her son’s kit bag could be returned to the family. The reply from Base Records explains that kit bags were the property of the Government, and if there had been any effects of sentimental value they would have been returned. The letter concludes ‘In view of the foregoing and the lapse of time since his demise, it is considered improbable that any of his effects were ever recovered.’ William John O’Day is remembered on the Honour Roll in St Matthews Anglican Church, Panton Hill.
With thanks to Brian Membrey ‘North Suburban World War One Resources”
This story was first published in “Fine Spirit and Pluck: World War One Stories from Banyule, Nillumbik and Whittlesea” published by Yarra Plenty Regional Library, August 2016
Photo: War Memorial at St Matthew’s Anglican Church, Panton Hill, 2016.
War Memorials on Banyule, Nillumbik and Whittlesea series
Photographer: Kev Howlett
