Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

William Harding Hethorn #459 5th Light Horse / 14th Field Artillery Brigade

William Hethorn was born in September 1883 at Dalby. His parents, John and Julia moved to Cavendish Road, Coorparoo in time for William to attend Coorparoo State School from 1892 and then Brisbane Grammar School. When William enlisted on 3rd November 1914, he gave his address as Cavendish Rd but his occupation as grazier. Upon enlistment William was drafted into the 5th Light Horse and departed Sydney on 21st December 1914 bound for Egypt. The 5th Light Horse was landed at Gallipoli as infantry on 16th May 1915, where it was deployed in mainly defensive roles.

In August of 1915, William was evacuated from the peninsula to Lemnos with what was originally diagnosed as heat exhaustion, but after a month in hospital he was finally diagnosed with jaundice and was transferred to the St Georges Hospital in Malta to recover.

By the time William was ready to be discharged back to his unit, Gallipoli had been evacuated and the AIF was going through an expansion in Egypt. Whilst in Egypt, William was transferred to the 14th Field Artillery first as a gunner and then driver. Field artillery was a mobile unit organised into batteries to support infantry. The artillery pieces (mainly 18 pounders) were pulled by a team of four or six horses, with a driver riding astride one of each horse in a pair, and other crew members riding on the gun limber which also carried ammunition.

On 30th June 1916, William arrived in Marseilles with the rest of his unit. The Australian artillery were deployed at Pozieres in late July and early August of that year before being withdrawn for a rest. In October, William had a short stay in a field hospital with an unstated illness before rejoining the unit during the cold winter of 1916/17. In January of 1917, William enjoyed two weeks leave in England.

In the spring of 1917, the Australian divisions were sent to the Ypres sector to be deployed in the battle of Messines. Plumer, the British general who planned the attack on Messines intended to fire 3 and a half million shells in the prelude to the attack, and the Australian artillery played a significant role. Soon after Messines, William was evacuated to hospital in England with trench fever, no doubt brought on by the appalling conditions in the Ypres salient. William did not rejoin his unit until January of 1918 by which time Haig had closed down the western front for the winter.

William was to spend only a short time in winter camp as he was again evacuated to England sick, this time with a carbuncle on his neck. The complaint must have been quite serious as despite the desperate need for manpower on the western front after March 1918, William did not rejoin his unit until 22 August 1918.

By this stage in the war, the Alliance forces (particularly the Australians under Monash and the Canadians under Currie) were in the ascendancy. After the German offensive in the Somme had been halted at Villers Bretonneux in April, the counter offensive at Hamel in July was followed by the Battle of Amiens on 8 August. Ludendorff (the German Commander) described the 8th August as the “blackest day” for the German Army. After Amiens, the Australian Corps pursued the retreating German armies back across the old Somme battlefields.

By late August 1918, Monash’s army (although it was strictly a corps, it was the biggest corps on the western front) had advanced across open ground as far as the fortress town of Peronne and the hill that protected it, Mont St Quentin. Even though the Australian infantry brigades were now down to the size of a battalion, Monash put two of his brigades into the battle of Mont St Quentin on 31 August 1918 against a division of the Prussian Guard. During this conflict, and most probably whilst supporting the charging infantry, William Hethorn was seriously wounded. He was evacuated back to the 37th Casualty Clearing Station near Chuignolles where he died of his wounds the same day. William was buried at Daours Communal Cemetery with the Rev. H. Scott officiating.

Eventually William’s mother; who was by this time a widow, received his personal belongings (which included a pair of spurs from his time in the Light Horse) as well as three photographs of his grave. William’s younger brother Cecil had also enlisted. He was awarded the Military Medal and survived the war to return to the family home in Shakespeare Street.

William Hethorn was one of the first volunteers to answer the call in 1914. He saw action at Gallipoli, the Somme, Messines and Mont Saint Quentin. He perished just two months short of the Armistice.

On the summit of Mont St Quentin today is the Australian 2nd Division memorial. The original memorial depicted an Australian soldier with his foot on the throat of an eagle; perhaps depicting those mad final days when the Australian Corps routed the German army. In 1940, when the Germans again occupied this part of France, the monument was pulled down. Today a more seemly statue graces the memorial on the Rue de Australiens.