Private Francis Williams

Rod Martin

Declaring himself to be eighteen, Francis (Frank) Williams looked young for his age.  This is not surprising, for research by Lenore Frost indicates that he lied when he was enlisting.  In reality, he was only sixteen.  In his photograph he looks even younger than that.  So why did the recruiters accept this lie, as well as ones about his previous military experience (four years in the senior cadets, and time attached to a militia unit - all impossible for a sixteen year-old to have achieved)?  There is no evidence in his military record of permission being given by a parent or guardian.  He wrote on his attestation form that both of his parents were dead and that his sister Annie was his closest relative.  However, no letter of permission from her is evident, and there is no such indication of one on his attestation forms. The situation becomes even more quizzical when we see that Frank had tried to enlist even earlier (presumably before June 1915) and had actually made it as far as the physical examination before being rejected because of problems with eyesight and chest measurement. In the first year of the war, approximately one-third of applicants had been rejected because of height, chest measurement or physical problems such as poor eyesight or dental decay.  By June 1915, however, the situation had changed.  Enlistments were still high (the peak monthly figure of 36 575 being reached in July of that year), but the news coming out of Gallipoli, particularly the figures for deaths and injuries, was not good, and many potential recruits were having second thoughts. Despite the rapid drop in enlistments after July, the Hughes Labor government obviously believed that most of the reluctant ones would respond to a strong propaganda campaign and eventually sign up.  Using an estimate of the numbers technically available for military service, it decided in December 1915 to offer an extra 50 000 troops on top of those it had already recruited.  There is evidence in the soldiers' files that, in order to meet the consequently increased monthly quota, recruiters turned blind eyes and deaf ears to many of the physical and legal requirements.  Frank's file could well be cited as showing such evidence.

And so sixteen year-old Frank, a grocer by trade from 18 Canterbury Street, Moonee Ponds, signed up on 5 April 1916 and was assigned to 3 Reinforcements, 46 Battalion. He was a slight boy, 168 centimetres tall and fifty-three kilos in weight.  However, he was able to successfully complete his training and embarked for the Middle East on A7 HMAT Medic on 20 May 1916.    

                       Troops waiting to board HMAT Medic 20 May 1916  (AWM PB0565)

 HMAT Medic leaving Port Melbourne, 20 May 1916    (AWM P08000.001)

Something strange happened while Frank was on the Medic.  His second attestation form (two were completed for each soldier, one a certified copy) was completed on the ship, something that was very unusual.  Moreover, it was almost as if a different person was signing up.  On his original form, Frank was listed as weighing fifty-three kilos, with a chest measurement of seventy-six to eighty-four centimetres, and having grey eyes and brown hair. Three months later, he was weighing fifty-five kilos, his chest had grown bigger and was now eighty-one to eighty-six centimetres, and his hair was black.  We could put a couple of these differences down to the effect of good army food, but that is probably going too far.  More likely it is a case of medical orderlies not being too exact with their measurements and one, perhaps, needing glasses to distinguish brown from black.  Whatever, the mystery remains.  Why was a second attestation form completed when Frank was already at sea?  Was it the case that an officer had doubts about his bona fides, particularly his age, and simply wanted to cover the military if there were any future complaint by family - especially in the event of serious injury or death? We shall never know but, when combined with the fact that no letter of permission was listed on his original form, it makes very interesting reading.

It is also strange that, after Frank arrived in England, his record is almost blank until he was released from hospital in February 1917.  What happened in the ensuing months after he arrived at Plymouth, via Egypt, on 16 June 1916? The only entry on his record relates to the fact that he went absent without leave on 13 August and did not return until the twenty-second of the month.  His punishment was quite severe: he was given 120 hours of detention in the guardhouse and he forfeited ten days' pay.  These details  suggest that, in all probability, he was apprehended by the military police rather than giving himself up voluntarily.   We do not know why Frank went AWOL, but it may have been that he realised the seriousness of his position and did not want to go to war.  After all, he was only sixteen years old.

46 Battalion had been enlarged while in Egypt, sections of the original 14 Battalion ('Jacka's Mob') being attached to the new recruits arriving from Melbourne.  The battalion's war diary indicates that it sailed from Egypt on 3 June and arrived in Marseilles on the eighth, entraining then for Bailleuil, near Armentières in northern France.  Why then did Frank go instead to England during that same month?  His casualty form notes that he enlisted on 20 June, four days after he arrived in England and almost three months after he signed up in Melbourne on 25 March.  It is also interesting to note that the enlistment dates on the second attestation form vary from 5 April to 20 June to 14 July.  Something strange had obviously happened that caused the military to send Frank to England.  We can only presume that his true age was somehow discovered and it was decided to keep him there at least until he was seventeen rather than sending him straight to France with his compatriots.  This provides another possible reason why he went AWOL in August.  He may have been very annoyed at being given this special treatment and decided to give the whole act away.

So, Frank probably stayed in England, and was hospitalised at some stage for an unknown illness, being released on 18 February 1917.  He was finally sent to France on 13 March and joined 46 Battalion on the eighteenth of that month. At that time, the battalion was in reserve at Bresle, on the Somme.  It had been involved in the battle for Pozières the previous year and, like all other units involved, had been severely mauled.  To help it recover, it had been alternating between duty in the trenches and training and rest behind the lines.  It had been scheduled for another 'stunt' by March 1917, however.    As winter turned to spring, British command planned a couple of offensives aimed at the fortified German Hindenburg Line, one at Arras and the other at Bullecourt.  Led by British Fifth Army commander, Sir Hubert Gough, the Allied forces planned to use a combined tank/infantry attack to achieve surprise at Bullecourt.  Instead of the usual preliminary barrage to ‘soften’ the Germans up, twelve of the recently introduced ‘tank’ weapons would strike across No Man’s Land, destroying the barbed wire barricades.  Infantry would then rush through the gaps created and storm the German trenches.

An early British tank, Flers 1917.  (AWM H09244)

That was the plan, anyway.  The battle was delayed by a day because only three of the tanks had arrived on time.  Others had either broken down, had ‘accidents’ or been delayed by muddy conditions, shell-damaged roads or an inconveniently timed blizzard.  The ones that did arrive made a hideous noise in doing so, removing any chance the Allies may have had of surprising the Germans with them.  Despite the fact that no further tanks arrived at the jumping off point, the impetuous Gough insisted on the attack going ahead the next morning.  He was anxious to please his boss, Sir Douglas Haig, who wanted a quick action to coincide with the offensive at Arras.

So the men, including those from 46 Battalion, 'hopped the bags' at 4.30 am on 11 April.  The tanks were soon out of the action and the fact that some of the troops made it to the first German trenches was an achievement in itself.  However, those men were stranded because they were not given artillery support once they got there.  The British believed that they would quickly progress to the next line of trenches, and the commanders didn’t want to take the risk of bombarding their own forces.  The men holding the German trenches had no choice but to either retreat or be captured.

Bullecourt was poorly planned and even more poorly executed.  For its part, 46 Battalion lost 387 men killed, wounded or missing - more than a third of its total entitlement.  Frank was among the missing.

Frank was later declared by a court of inquiry to have been killed in action.  In October 1921, his sister, Annie Snedden, wrote to the military authorities, saying that another brother had enquired while in France regarding the whereabouts of Frank's body.  He heard that Frank was last seen alive at Lagnicourt, laying in a shell hole, badly wounded in the head.  This was reported to have happened on 11 April and, to the family's knowledge, he was never seen again.

The battlefield at Lagnicourt, part of the First Battle of Bullecourt (AWM E04582)

A Red Cross report obtained from a Private Pilkington said that Frank was seen to the right of Bullecourt, nursing a broken arm caused by a machine gun bullet.  However, it was a case of mistaken identity, as the private's description of the man was nothing like Frank.

One of the infamous tanks of Bullecourt, April 1917 (AWM G01534J)

Frank's war was very short and he made the ultimate sacrifice.  Because his body was never found, his name was inscribed on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial in France.

(courtesy Simon at www.webmatters.net)

Sources

Australian War Memorial

Bean, C.E.W.: Anzac to Amiens, Canberra, Australian War Memorial, 5th edition,

                        1968

en.wikipedia.org

Frost, Lenore

http://www.webmatters.net

National Archives of Australia

Travers, Richard: Diggers in France: Australian soldiers on the Western Front, Sydney,  ABC Books, 2008