Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

William Leslie Arnold enlisted in the 9th Battalion on the 24 May 1915 as a 25-year-old labourer. He had lived his youth on his father’s farm at Seaview near Warrgul in Victoria, but was a cane cutter in Queensland when he enlisted. He and his brother Frank used to ride horses to dances in the Nilma North Hall and apparently slept there overnight before riding home. His parents lived in Warragul Victoria. Promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal soon after arrival in France on the 5 July 1916, he was wounded in action in an attack on German trenches at Pozieres on the 22 July 1916 with gunshot wounds to the right ankle and thigh and the next day transferred to the 1st Australian General Hospital at Rouen. An uncle recollected that, ‘we were told that he left the trenches to rescue another soldier who was lying wounded in “No Man’s Land” and calling “water, water” and “where are my mates?” for a day or two. He reached the soldier and brought him back to the trench but when he stood up to lower him into the trench, he was caught by a burst of machine gun fire in his legs and lower body’.

On the 14 August William was transferred to England but died of his wounds two days later on the 16 August 1916, from complications caused by the effects of his serious thigh wound. He was 26 years of age. He was finally buried at the Lodge Hill Cemetery Birmingham, along with 53 other Australians who died in the military hospitals around Birmingham.

The very next day, 17 August 1916, his younger brother 3519 Francis Benjamin Arnold 6th Battalion AIF, was severely wounded near the same village of Pozieres in the ferocious fighting the Australians were involved in around the town. Francis, shot in the face, held on for a week but died from his wounds on the 25 August 1916.