Volunteers of Essendon and Flemington, 1914-1918

 

Hall W J    Pte    109    William James              4 LHR    21    Farmer    Single    Pres       

Address:    Greenvale   

Next of Kin:    Hall, Isiah, Greenvale (also "Mittagong", 4 Napier Cres, Essendon)

Enlisted:    18 Aug 1914       

Embarked:     A18 Wiltshire 19 Oct 1914   

 

Relatives on Active Service:

Hall-T-G-Pte-61401  brother

 

Date of death:  14/11/1915

CWGC: "Son of Isaiah Thomas and Annie Hall, of "Mittagong," Napier Crescent, Essendon,

Victoria, Australia. Native of Greenvale, Victoria, Australia".

SHELL GREEN CEMETERY

 

Private William James Hall

 

Rod Martin

 

William (Billie) Hall was farming in Greenvale at the time of his enlistment on 18 August 1914.  Hailing originally from Napier Street, Essendon, he was twenty-one years old, 177 centimetres tall and weighing in at sixty-five kilos.  Given these statistics, he probably would have been reasonably representative of the thousands of young men who besieged the recruiting offices set up around the country as soon as war broke out on 4 August.  These  men were eager to join the fray for king, country and empire, and keen to see the world before the conflict ended, as they came to believe, in ‘a few short months.’  Collectively entitled ‘Dinkum Aussies’, these early recruits were the ‘cream of the crop’, meeting certain height, age and health requirements and, in Billie’s case, ones for horse riding as well.

 

For Billie was one of the select few men who joined the Australian Light Horse Brigade and was assigned to 4 Light Horse Regiment (4 LHR).  Together with his new comrades, he trained at Broadmeadows and was included in the first contingent for Europe, sailing from Port Melbourne on A18 HMAT Wiltshire on 19 October 1914.

 

4 Light Horse Regiment taking the salute, Melbourne, September 1914       (The Australasian 3 October 1914)

 

(AWM A04186)

 

After gathering together at Albany in Western Australia, a convoy carrying recruits from all states, as well as New Zealand, sailed into the Indian Ocean, ostensibly heading for the by then established Western Front in Europe.  However, while en route, the commanders were informed that, instead, they would be disembarking in Egypt.  Their troops were now going to be used for an attack on Turkey.

 

Watering the horses at sea, HMAT Wiltshire  (AWM C01715)

 

The convoy arrived in Egypt in December 1914, the troops disembarking at Alexandria after travelling though the Suez Canal.

 

Wiltshire arriving at Port Said.    (AWM C01679)

 

The LH Brigade initially trained at Alexandria, before transferring to the Australian base camp at Mena (on the outskirts of Cairo) by April 1915.

 

Possibly 4 LHR in training at Alexandria      (AWM PS0392)

 

The light horsemen were not involved in the April landing at Gallipoli.  One look at the rugged terrain at Anzac Cove was enough to convince commanders that there was no place for horses in those gullies and on the steep cliffs.  Horses that were sent in advance were quickly sent back to Egypt.  Donkeys and mules were far better equipped to cope with the environment.  By the middle of the next month, however, the slow progress of the battle and the high number of casualties among the Anzac troops led to the commanders sending to Egypt for reinforcements.  Major-General Harry Chauvel, commander of the Light Horse, was asked to send his horsemen, to be used as supplementary infantry.  As a result, ‘A’ Squadron of 4 LHR (the unit to which Billie belonged) was sent from Heliopolis to Alexandria on 15 May, and thence to the Dardanelles.  The unit commander noted in the war diary that the men were ‘dismounted’.  ‘A’ Squadron was in the trenches by 23 May and the other squadrons, which left Alexandria on the nineteenth, arrived near Gaba Tepe on the twenty-fourth and were placed in reserve.

 

The 4 LH squadrons were initially scattered to reinforce the infantry battalions located at various parts of the battlefield.  One scene in the Nine Network/Screen Australia television series Gallipoli (inspired by Les Carlyon’s book, also called Gallipoli) shows a small number of light horsemen arriving in the trench occupied by the protagonist and his comrades and getting a less than glorious welcome.  It is not long before a fight ensues.  It would appear that the infantrymen felt that they had done the hard work in fighting for and establishing their footholds, and the horsemen were coming in late to take advantage of those positions.

 

Of course, none of this was the fault of Billie and his comrades.  They went where there were ordered to go did what they were asked to do.  They were not gathered together as a complete light horse regiment until 11 June. ‘A’ Squadron was then sent into reserve until the end of the month.

 

Much of 4 LHR’s time at Gallipoli was spent defending a precarious position generally known as Anzac and, in particular, the so-called Ryrie’s Post.

 

The view from Ryrie’s Post        (AWM P2023.033.005)

 

It relieved 7 LHR in that position on 7 July and stayed there until the seventeenth, when it was withdrawn and sent to the island of Imbros for rest and recuperation. 

 

Camp and harbour at ‘K’ Beach, Imbros    (AWM C04616)

 

The unit returned to Anzac Cove on 22 July and then occupied Ryrie’s Post on the twenty-ninth.  Each squadron was attached to a definite frontage.  The Turks welcomed them back by making a minor bomb attack the next day, but no casualties were recorded.  The horsemen replied with a few bombs of their own!  The enemy was quiet again after that.

 

Officers’ mess rooms and dugouts, Ryrie’s Post   (AWM P12134.013.005

 

For 4 LHR, things were relatively quiet during the first week of August.  Elsewhere at Anzac, however, feint attacks were being carried out in support of the British landing at Suvla Bay, further north.  The most disastrous of these was undoubtedly the attack at The Nek on 7 August, carried out by the Victorian 8 LHR and the Western Australian 10 LHR.  During four fruitless charges, the Light Horse suffered 372 casualties, 234 of them fatal.  The bones of the men who fell in the narrow strip of No Man’s Land between the opposing trenches lay there until the end of the war.  It was far too dangerous to venture out from the Australian trenches to recover their bodies.

 

The only victory at this point in August came with the capture of the Turkish position at Lone Pine.  However, the casualty list was, once again, horrendous, 2 277 Australians being killed or wounded during the four days of the battle.

 

While this attrition was occurring, 4 LHR remained at Ryrie’s Post.  At 4.30 am on the sixth, the Turks attacked a small post to the left of the unit’s position.  4 LHR were posted there and bore the brunt of the attempt by the enemy to infiltrate some of the trenches.  They were beaten back after rapidly gathered reinforcements arrived and the conflict was over by 10.20 am.

 

Looking south from Ryrie’s Post.  The Turkish trenches are across the ridge in the foreground.    (AWM H00196)

 

On 21 August, 130 men from ‘A’ and ‘C’ Squadrons moved south to Lone Pine to relieve 7 LHR in the trenches there.  We know that Billie was not included in that number because he reported sick with influenza on the fifteenth and was sent to hospital.  He was later transferred to Cottoners’ Hospital and, on 29 August, to All Saints Hospital in Malta.  He did not return to his regiment until 25 October, so it is likely that he suffered from complications of the ‘flu, possibly pneumonia.

By the time Billie returned, 4 LHR had been moved to the Lone Pine sector and had taken over the defence of Leane’s Trench, captured as part of a diversion on the night of 31 July/1 August. 

 

   A machine gunner from 1 Battalion in Leane’s Trench   (AWM A03556)  

 

At this stage of the conflict at Gallipoli, the struggle had boiled down to a stalemate, each side desperate to hold its positions rather than attempting to conquer new territory.  This did not mean, however, that no action occurred.  As proof of this, the regiment’s commander noted in the war diary that the Turks had bombarded 4 LHR’s trenches on the morning of 4 October.  However, there was no further action from the enemy side for the rest of the month and the light horsemen handed the position over to 1 Battalion on 30 October.  On the same day, 4 LHR returned once again to Ryrie’s Post and took over the machine gun position from 7 LHR.

 

Just what Billie did in the first fourteen days of November 1915 is unclear.  He may have been involved in taking over the machine gun position from 1 Brigade in Leane’s Trench.  There again, from the tenth of the month his squadron may have been assigned to act as the reserve to Chatham’s Post every night. Alternatively, he may have remained at Ryrie’s Post.  The war diary does not detail the whereabouts and activities of every squadron.  Wherever he was, Billie was killed in action, either by a shell or a sniper in all probability, on 14 November.

 

Billie was buried at Shell green Cemetery the next day.  In his absence, 4 LHR fought on until, as part of the mass evacuation of the peninsula, it was withdrawn on 11 December and returned to Egypt.  

 

Eight months for 8 000 deaths, and nothing was achieved.

 

 

(Commonwealth War Graves Commission)

 

(Courtesy of Kim Phillips: Spirits of Gallipoli)

 

 

Sources

Australian War Memorial

Carlyon, Les: Gallipoli, Sydney, Macmillan, 2001

Cochrane, Peter: Australians at war, Sydney, ABC Books, 2001

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

http://alh-research.tripod.com/Light_Horse/index.blog

http://www.greatwarforum.org

Moorehead, Alan: Gallipoli, London, NEL Mentor, 1974

National Archives of Australia

Pedersen, Peter: The Anzacs: Gallipoli to the Western Front, Melbourne, Penguin, 2007

Phillips, Kim: Spirits of Gallipoli, Sydney, self-published, 2015

 

 

Trooper William James Hall's memorial stone at Shell Green Cemetery.  (Photo courtesy of Kim Phillips, Spirits

of Gallipoli, 2010.)

 

The Argus, 14 December 1915.  Courtesy of Kim Phillips.

 

 

War Service Commemorated

Essendon Gazette Roll of Honour killed

 

 

In Memoriam

 

HALL.—In loving memory of Billie, youngest son of

I. T. & A. Hall, late 4th Light Horse, killed in action

at Gallipoli, 14th Nov, 1915. (His sister, Agnes Glasier.)

The Argus 14 November 1916

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1613739

 

HALL.—In loving memory of Trooper William 
James Hall, A Squadron, D. Troop, 4th Light
Horse, killed in action at Gallipoli, 14th Novem-
ber, 1915, dearly loved son of I. T. and A. Hall;
beloved brother of Agnes (Mrs. H. Glasier), Tom,  
Nellie, and Ruby, "Tyne," Greenvale, Broadmeadows.
The Argus 14 November 1916

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1613739

 

HALL. —In loving memory of Trooper William
James Hall, 4th Light Horse, killed in action,
Gallipoli, 14th November, 1915, dearly loved
son of Isiah and Annie Hall, and loved brother
of Agnes (Mrs. Glasier), Tom, Nellie, Ruby.

HALL. —In loving memory of Billie, late of 4th
Light Horse, youngest son of A. and I. T.
Hall, Greenvale, killed in action at Gallipoli, 1915,
14th November, 1915. (His sister, Agnes Glasier.)

The Argus 14 November 1917

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1663009

 

HALL. —In loving memory of Trooper William   
James Hall, "A" Squadron, "D" Troop, 4th Light
Horse Regiment, killed in action at Gallipoli,
14th November, 1915, dearly loved son of Isiah T.
and Annie Hall, and brother of Mrs. Glasier, Tom
 (on active service), Nellie and   Ruby, "Mittagong,"
Napier crescent, Essendon,   late of "Tyne," Greenvale.
The Argus 14 November 1918
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1426981

 

HALL.—In loving memory of Trooper William 
James Hall, 4th Light Horse Regiment, A Squad- 
ron, D Troop, dearly loved son of  I. T. Hall, J.P.,
and Annie Hall, loved brother of Agnes   
 (Mrs. Glazier), Tom, Nellie, and Ruby, of
"Mittagong," Napier crescent, Essendon, late of      
Greenvale, Broadmeadows, killed in action at     
Gallipoli, November 14, 1915. 
The Argus 14 November 1919
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4654859

 

HALL -In loving memory of William James Hall,
4th Light Horse Regiment, killed in action,      
Gallipoli, 14th November 1915, dearly loved  
son of  I T Hall and Annie Hall, Mittagong,
Napier Crescent, Essendon.
The Argus 13 November 1920
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4572031

 

No further years checked.