Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

William John BIDDLE was born on 1st February, 1890 in Warwick, Queensland

His parents were Thomas BIDDLE & Jessie Ann WHITE

He enlisted in Toowoomba on 2nd August, 1915 and embarked with the 5th Light Horse Regiment, 13th Reinforcements on the HMAT Kyarra fron Brisbane on 3rd January, 1916

William died of injuries accidentally received when a dugout collapsed on him - he was buried in Bottom Wood and his name is memorialised on the Australian War Memorial & the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial.

Medals:  British War Medal & Victory Medal

Last Rank was Shoeing Smith

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His brother, Private Donald Peter BIDDLE (SN308) was killed in a Railway accident prior to his embarkation & died at Brisbane General Hospital on 7th December, 1915

# 1877 BIDDLE William John  2nd Light Horse / 25th Field Artillery Brigade
 
William Biddle was born in Warwick to parents Thomas and Jessie Ann Biddle. The family lived outside of Warwick around Pratten and young William attended School at Thane Creek. William worked as a labourer in the rural districts of the Darling Downs and had moved to the Bell district by the time of the outbreak of war in 1914.
 
William’s younger brother, Donald, was the first to enlist in February 1915 as an original member of the 25thBattalion. Sadly, Donald was killed in an accident at Brunswick Street Railway Station in June and not long after, William presented himself to the recruiting office in Toowoomba on 2nd August 1915.
 
William informed the recruiters that he was 25 years old and was working as a labourer around Bell. He named his father, Thomas, of Warwick as his next of kin. William reported to Enoggera where after a brief time in a depot battalion was drafted into the 13th reinforcements of the 2nd Light Horse Regiment. The reinforcements embarked for overseas on the “Kyarra” in Brisbane on 3rd January 1916 and disembarked a month later in Alexandria on the Egyptian Mediterranean coast.
 
The early months of 1916 were a time of reorganisation and expansion for the AIF. The Gallipoli force had been evacuated and returned to the camps in Egypt. The Gallipoli veterans would in many cases form an experienced core for new battalions to be created from the large number of reinforcements that had enlisted during 1915 and were then in Egypt. Once reorganised, the new expanded AIF effectively doubled in size prior to being sent to the Western Front.
 
The Light Horse was to remain in Egypt to act as a defensive force against a possible Turkish advance on the Suez Canal. Unlike the infantry though, there were no plans to expand the size of the Light Horse; there was however, an increased need for men with horse handling skills in artillery, ammunition trains and general logistics when the AIF moved to the Western Front. It would appear that William’s experience with horses during his training in Australia made him a candidate for transfer to the field artillery.
 
The field artillery during the first world war relied exclusively on horses and mules to pull the 18 pounder field guns and howitzers, as well as horse teams that pulled the general service wagons which delivered ammunition from the dumps behind the firing lines. There was great demand for blacksmiths, farriers, harness makers and drivers to keep the gunners supplied.
 
On 27th March 1916, William Biddle was transferred from the Light Horse Remounts to the 14th Field Artillery Brigade as a gunner but two weeks later was appointed as a shoeing smith which probably required that he demonstrate skills in shoeing horses and mules as well as treating injuries or diseases. In the last days in June, the 14th FAB boarded transports at Alexandria for the voyage across the Mediterranean to Marseilles. When William marched in to the AIF depot at Etaples he was transferred again, this time to the 25th Field Artillery.
 
In the middle of July, the 25th FAB, supporting the 5th Division AIF, moved into the gun lines at Fleurbaix. The war diary of the brigade records daily notation of rounds fired, as well as weather and casualties. The gunners remained in that area, although undergoing some minor changes in battery positions to avoid enemy counterbattery fire, for the next three months. As winter closed in, the brigade took to the roads to move over 100 kilometres south to the Somme and by the middle of December had taken up position in the firing line at Mametz Wood near Pozieres.
 
It was recorded that on 18th January 1917, William Biddle was buried when an old German dugout collapsed on him. He had apparently been scavenging wood for a fire to ward of the cold. His mates took an hour to free him by which time he was unconscious and close to death. William was taken to a nearby dressing station where he died.
 
William was buried in a temporary grave in Bottom Wood with the Brigade chaplain in attendance. There is some confusion as to whether the grave was marked in some way and the ground around Pozieres was fought over twice more before the armistice. When Graves Registration Teams from the Imperial War Graves Commission began to scour the battlefields for isolated graves at the end of the war, all trace of William Biddle had been lost.
 
In 1938, some 20 years after the end of the First World War, the Australian Government completed the construction of the Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux. The memorial was dedicated by the newly crowned King George VI, and records the names of over 10,000 Australian soldiers who lost their lives in France and have no known grave; William Biddle among them.