Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

From Francois Somme

Pte 3752 William Davis,
1st Battalion of the Australian Pioneers,
1st Australian Division, AIF
 
More than a hundred years ago, the world as we know it today sank into the madness and darkness of a terrible war which swept away, under the shells the hopes and the youth of a whole generation of men who , in the prime of their lives, with exceptional bravery and loyalty, answered the call of duty to fight in France alongside their friends and brothers who, shoulder to shoulder, in the trenches, stood proud and tall in the face of death that awaited them in the mud and in the barbed wire of the battlefields which were nothing but slaughterhouses in which humanity was crushed by a hell never seen before which pushed so many young boys to kill each other in an exacerbated brutality generated by the savagery of war but in this nightmare, men, driven to their destinies, fought not to kill their neighbor nor for glory but in blood and mud, they did all they could to put an end to all the wars by watching over each other and remained strong for the men who stood by their side and bayonets forward, they charged one last time to make peace prevail, to give a chance, a new hope to their children, to their loved ones to have a tomorrow, a world in peace that would guide nations to move forward together, not against each other and for this hope, thousands of men gave their lives and rest today in peace in the silent and peaceful cemeteries of the Somme where I would always walk with respect to watch over these heroes whose stories deserve and must be told so that their memory never fades, so that their names live on forever.

Today, it is with the utmost respect and with the deepest gratitude that I would like to honor the memory of one of these young men, of one of my boys of the Somme, who, for Australia and for France, on the battlefields strewn with poppies, gave his today for our tomorrow.I would like to pay a very respectful tribute to Private number 3752 William Davis who fought with bravery in the 1st Battalion of the Australian Pioneers, 1st Australian Division of the Australian Imperial Force, and who died of his wounds 108 years ago, on August 21, 1916 at the age of 22 during the Battle of the Somme.

William Davis was born in August 1894 in Courijah, near Thirlmere, New South Wales, Australia, and was the son and 11th child of John Davis (who died on September 29, 1931 aged 86) and Mary Davis (who died on 31 December 1905 at the age of 54 and now rests in peace alongside her husband at Thirlmere Cemetery). He was educated at the local public school at Thirlmere, and later worked as a labourer and timber cutter until the outbreak of the war.

William enlisted on September 20, 1915 at Holsworthy Camp as a Private in the 2nd Australian Infantry Battalion, 12th Reinforcement, 1st Brigade, 1st Australian Division, which was raised in August 1914 at Liverpool, south west of Sydney, and after a period of training of just over three months, he embarked with his unit from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A7 Medic on December 30, 1915 and sailed for Egypt.

On March 17, 1916, William arrived in Egypt and was disembarked at Serapeum and transferred to the 1st Battalion of the Australian Pioneers which was part of the 1st Australian Division.

Pioneer Battalions were essentially light military combat engineers organised like the infantry and located at the very forward edge of the battle area.They were used to develop and enhance protection and mobility for supported troops and to deny it to the enemy.They constructed defensive positions, command posts and dugouts, prepared barbed wire defences and on occasion breached those of the enemy using devices like the Bangalore Torpedo.

Their skills and capability were broad from building, construction and maintenance to road and track preparation and maintenance. They could also, and did quite often, fight as infantry.

Although they had existed in the Indian Army before 1914, pioneer battalions were used on a large scale by Commonwealth forces on the Western Front during the First World War. Because of its largely static nature, there was a much heavier reliance on field defences and the provision of mobility support to get people weapons ammunition rations and stores up to the front and casualties out.Roads and railways needed to be built maintained and repaired.

While these were also Engineer tasks, Engineers alone could not meet the heavy demand, while riflemen were always needed at the front. Therefore, pioneer battalions were raised to meet the needs of both and trained to support both engineers and infantry.

On March 27, 1916, shortly after being transferred to his new unit, William and his comrades marched to Alexandria where they joined the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) and from there the 1st Battalion of the Australian Pioneers proceeded overseas to France and the battlefields on board "Saxonia" and were disembarked in Marseilles on April 3 then embarked by train for Godewaersvelde (Hauts-De-France) where they arrived two days later and after having bivouacked near the railway station, moved into billets at Rouge Croix where they followed a period of training but on April 16, William fell ill and was admitted to Field Ambulance No 3 suffering from mumps and transferred to No 1 Casualty Clearing Station then to the British Isolation Hospital where after an examination , he was transferred to No 7 General Hospital of St Omer, discharged to duty on May 8 and then returned to the 1st Battalion of the Australian Pioneers on May 10 at Sailly-Sur-La-Lys.

On May 30,1916, the 1st Pioneer Battalion was carrying out routine repair and building works in the trenches near Sailly-Sur-La-Lys. At 7:30 pm the sector of the front line they were working on came under heavy German bombardment. After two hours of shelling, several German raiding parties attacked their position. Australian troops drove off these attacks, but the fighting caused considerable damage to the trenches.William and the 1st Pioneer Battalion worked all night to repair the parapets and make sure the trenches were passable again. They did not complete this task until daybreak.

On July 9, 1916, after weeks of exhausting work on the front line between Sailly-Sur-la-Lys and Bailleul consisting of repairing trenches and huts under intermittent enemy fire, the men of the 1st Battalion of the Australian Pioneers were finally relieved and marched into billets at Merris where William finally had a brief rest period then on July 11, moved to Bailleul West train station and embarked at 7:33am for the Somme and arrived at Doullens at 12:20 then moved into billets at Canaples. The following day, they moved to Montonvillers and followed a period of training then on July 16, joined the small village of Harponville where they remained until July 19 and the next day, marched for Albert then on July 23, joined the front line and were heavily involved in the terrible Battle of Pozieres in support of the 1st Australian Division in a never before seen hell on earth which would mow down the ranks of the Australian Imperial Force with a frighteningly high casualty rate.

At 12:30 am on July 23, 1916,Australian troops advanced across no man’s land after a heavy bombardment of the German lines. They successfully reached their objectives but soon came under heavy German counterattack. 1st Division troops successfully defended against the initial German counter attack; however, this was followed by three days of extremely heavy artillery fire and fighting.

The 1st Pioneer Battalion supported other Australian troops by constructing strong points and improving communication lines. On the night of 24 July it supported an infantry attack on German lines, and on the morning of 25 July it helped man the trenches to defend against a particularly strong German assault. Along with the rest of the 1st Division, it was relieved from front line duties on 27 July. In the five days of the fighting, the 1st Division suffered over 5,000 casualties.
After those first nightmarish days at Pozieres, William and the 1st Battalion of the Australian Pioneers moved back into billets at Albert on 27 July 1916 but had lost 130 men. On 1 August they marched to Bonneville for a period of training carried out under Company arrangements then moved to La Vicogne on August 6 and returned to the front line at Pozieres on August 15. Again, they cleared and improved front line and communication trenches, all the while facing intermittent German high explosive and shrapnel artillery.

Unfortunately, less than a week later, on August 21, 1916, William met his fate.

On August 21,1916 William and the 1st Pioneer Battalion was conducting repair work on trenches badly damaged by German shelling in an area of the Somme known as Avoca Valley. The unit came under heavy and constant German shelling. In difficult conditions, the unit managed to take ten German prisoners, but suffered heavy casualties and William received a shrapnel wound to the head that fractured his skull. He was evacuated to the 13th Field Ambulance then to the nearby 3rd Casualty Clearing Station in Puchevillers but later died of his wounds. He was 22 years old.

Today, William Davis rests in peace alongside his friends, comrades and brothers in arms at Puchevillers British Cemetery, Somme,and his grave bears the following inscription: "Memory keeps our loved son near us."

William, on this day of remembrance, I wish, from the bottom of my heart, to express to you my gratitude and my respect for all that you did alongside your comrades for my country for which you fought relentlessly while standing proud on the front line under enemy fire during this summer of August 1916 which saw the world sink into the madness of a murderous battle during which so many young Australian soldiers fought and fell in the blood red mud of Pozieres today strewn with millions poppies which carry on their petals the memory of these men who did their duty with valor and determination alongside their comrades and brothers with honor under their slouch hat, eternal symbol of the bravery and sacrifices of the young Diggers who, far from home they sacrificed their youth but made the great and beautiful Australian nation proud by their acts of courage, faith and love on the battlefield on which they charged with resolution and confidence even in the face of death which called them and which was waiting for them but they never backed down, they never gave up and beyond the parapets, beyond the barbed wire, they rushed bayonets forward under the fiery red light of skies set ablaze by the lightning of the artillery which, tirelessly, spat thousands of tons of shells in a macabre symphony dragging behind it death and desolation over once peaceful green landscapes and fields that turned into gray quagmires that looked like lunar soil dotted with thousands of shell holes, gaping scars of a world on the brink of agony over which flowed the blood of so many young boys who killed each other and fell on each other in attacks as courageous as they were disastrous by the end result of appalling losses which never ceased to to get worse for the sole gain of a few meters, of a few trenches taken at the cost of extreme suffering that friends and enemies endured together in the hell of the Somme which sent an entire generation to death, towards the silence of their white graves , results of sometimes insane orders given by generals who did not see what hell their men were living in and who, in a few minutes, sent them towards the fire of enemy machine guns which again and again mowed down waves of brave men who watched over the on top of each other and who gave their all in the name of peace and freedom, gathered and united around common causes in which they deeply believed despite the appalling brutality of the war which never shattered their humanity nor their hopes and found in the camaraderie, in the brotherhood, the strength and the courage to stand,and with love for their country, for their loved ones, behind their officers, followed the signal to go over the top under the shrapnel, under the grenades , in an air saturated with bullets which whizzed around them and which, tirelessly, stopped the lives of their mates in a last step of bravery and fell riddled with bullets and which, until their last breath, did their duty guided and gathered in the ANZAC spirit which guided the young Diggers through life and death and in which they still stand today proudly and young on the sacred grounds of France which will never forget the sacrifices of these heroes upon whom I will always watch with love like sons and who will be, forever, in my care and in my heart, my boys of the Somme whose names and memory will live forever.

Thank you so much William, for all that you and your comrades did and gave for my country whose love, respect and gratitude will forever be yours.At the going down of the sun and in the morning,we will remember him,we will remember them.

I wish, with all my heart and with the highest respect, to thank Mrs Rhonda Solomon, great niece of William Davis, with whom I am extremely proud and honored to be friends