World War 1 Casualty : William George Vincent Williams (Australia’s First Fatality)

Few will be aware that the first Australian casualty of the Great War on 1914 was William George Vincent Williams from 36 Beavers Road, Northcote.

Williams had spent five years in the Naval Reserve and had just a week left to serve out his time when war was declared and he was commanded into full service after travelling to Sydney by train.

In the years leading up to the outbreak of war, expansionist Germany (which had control of the north-eastern section of the island of New Guinea) had established powerful wireless and telegraph stations in the south-west Pacific which enabled them to communicate quickly with German ships in the region and with Germany itself.

When Britain declared war on Germany, Australia was asked to destroy the radio stations and to occupy German New Guinea and the surrounding areas, leading to the formation of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (ANMEF) for which recruiting began on 10 August, five days after Britain entered the war and about a week before offices opened for A.I.F. volunteers.

Less than ten days later, a force of 1,000-strong infantry and 500 naval reservists and ex-seamen had been recruited and equipped – the naval reservists were drawn from Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, but due to the urgency of the situation, the military component was taken only from New South Wales.

The ANMEF left Sydney on 19 August aboard HMAT Berrima escorted by the cruiser HMAS Sydney and joined later by two stores ships, two submarines and further escort vessels.

Williams was one of 104 Reservists from Melbourne who entrained to Sydney and became of two raiding parties of 25 Reservists set ashore in New Britain on the morning of 11 September to destroy two radio stations believed to be operating some 4 and 7 miles inland … in a letter written to his family in Sydney the previous evening, the group’s medical officer, Captainn Brian Pockley who became the second Australian casualty and first commissioned officer to die in the conflict revealed the uncertainty surrounding the operation …:

“…we are not even certain that they exist, and much doubt if they are defended. However, we shall see tomorrow ...”

The advance section of Williams’ party came across a group of natives in a coconut plantation on the Bita Paka Road.   Williams covered another sailor, Stoker Kember, who returned with the information that they were just gathering coconuts, but after the pair advanced about ten yards, Williams was shot in the stomach by German soldiers hiding in the plantation huts.

Williams and the group’s medical officer, Captain Brian Pockley (above right) who was also mortally wounded were later picked up by a party with an ambulance cart and taken back to H.M.A.S. Berrima, one of the ships that had carried the Australian force to Rabaul and they both died on board that afternoon, Williams about an hour before Pockley (the first commissioned casualty).

Not surprisingly, he was known to his family as “Billy” and employed as an engine room attendant with the Melbourne Electricity Supply Company. His parents were married in Brighton, England in 1884 and migrated to Australia almost immediately. Williams senior later died (date unknown) and his mother re-married, becoming Mrs Joseph Victor Robinson at Castlemaine in 1906. She had a brother from Coolgardie, Western Australia, Albert Boundy, 557, 16 Infantry killed in action at Gallipoli on 30 April, 1915.  The house in Beavers Road shows under another brother, Victor Boundy.

One German and 30 New Guinea native police troops under German command were killed; RAN Reserve Officer Lieutenant Bond was awarded a Distinguished Service Order for his action in disarming eight Germans and causing the surrender of 20 New Guineans.

The German administrator at surrendered Rabaul two days later, and on 21 September all German forces in the colony surrendered and ANMEF forces commenced military occupation of German New Guinea.

The Treaty of Versailles of 1919 acceded to Australian Prime Minister “Billy” Hughes’ demand that the former German colony be placed under Australian control despite U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s grand plan for the “internationalisation” of the former German colonies. Japan occupied most of the remaining German possessions in the Pacific.

The eastern section of New Guinea in 1915; German colonies in red. Holland (who remained neutral during the war, held the western end of the island, the southern-eastern quarter already known as the Territory of Papua was annexed in 1883 by the Government of Queensland for the British Empire.

Link to the history of William George Vincent Williams
Link to ozsportshistory.com downloads for WW1