103 YEARS BILLY WILSON

 

IT WAS A TUESDAY, WASN'T IT BILLY?

ARMENTIERES - THE BATTLEFIELD _ GERMAN BUNDESARCHIV PHOTOGRAPH

IT WAS A TUESDAY, WASN’T IT BILLY?

- TUESDAY, 14TH MAY, 1918

Private James William“BILLY”Wilson   Service No. 5659

17TH Battalion, Australian Imperial Force

KILLED IN ACTION Near / Armentieres FRANCE In the course of repelling the German Forces, whose attempt to reach the Sea had already failed.

Did you know it was Tuesday, or in that Hell around Armentieres, blasted to Kingdom Come for miles and miles, did you really care what day it was?

THE ICONIC AUSTRALIAN SLOUCH HAT

 

 

 

They didn’t tell your Mum how you died, blown to pieces by a German shell blast .

 

But your Superior Officer took the trouble to tell my Grandma and Grandad – your Sister Louisa (“doll’s eyes” you called her) and her husband Ted .Louisa was distraught at losing her only brother she loved so much. In due course, the Army provided your Mother with a Certificate of Burial for which Ted made an ornate carved wooden frame with all the flags of the Allies around its edges. (I guess he inherited that skill from his Grandfather Carl Dopmeyer whose sculpture and wood carving gained him fame in Germany in the second half of the 1800’s.

 

 

We don’t seem to have a photo of you Billy, which is strange for your time. But we know a little about you:

 

You enlisted on 16th November, 1915. You were said to be 27 years old and 3 months, of dark complexion weighing 119 lbs. and 5 Feet 3 ½ “in height. So you were a little bloke by Aussie standards but true to your English born parents’ physique. You had no distinguishing marks on your body. You were a Laborer.

But what’s this? You were Discharged just over a month later on 22nd December, 1915. Because you had insufficient teeth to masticate!

 

 

 

17th Battalion A.I.F. (AUSTRALIAN  IMPERIAL FORCE) COLOUR PATCH

 

 

But you can’t keep a good bloke down, and on 24th February, 1916 you enlist again! By now you have a “Fresh” complexion, Brown eyes, Brown Hair, your height is the same but at 27 years and 6 months you weigh in at 116lbs And you have acquired a scar at your Right eye, on your Right thigh and inside your Right knee. Did this happen during your initial enlistment? An accident? All the injury was on your right side and the inclusion of a scar behind your right knee doesn’t sound like a fight!

Whatever the case, the lack of teeth , (stated to have occurred over the 10 preceding years due to cavities)– perhaps you had obtained dentures (?)- did not stop you being accepted again.

 

You appear to have been buried initially at Fouilloy and later exhumed and re-interred at the great Australian War Cemetery at Villers- Bretonneux."

 

 

"The sun shining down on these green fields of France
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance
The trenches have vanished long under the plow
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard that's still no mans land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
And a whole generation were butchered and damned

Did they beat the drums slowly
Did they play the fife lowly
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
Did the band play the last post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest"

 

 

(The Green Fields of France - Eric Bogle)

The Australian War Memorial at Villers Bretonneux

 

 

 

On 4 th February, 1919 your Mother received from the Army your personal effects – you know how pitifully few and pathetic they were. You had made your Mother your Next of Kin because your Father had died previously.

 

CONCLUSION

I’m sorry Billy, that I haven’t yet got more information about you and the War you fought, but I am on the job and will set the record straight as best I can.

You and your comrades, who already went through Hell on earth in France, are in my daily prayers for the repose of your Souls. And we who live our lives to-day are forever grateful to you.

 

 

 

 

Posted 14th May 2011 by vexilla regis

Labels: JAMES WILLIAM "BILLY"WILSON