Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

William Goodchild was born in Sydney in 1893, the eldest of five sons to William George Birkett Goodchild and Emilia Louise Goodchild. The family moved to Bundaberg in time for young William to attend school in Bundaberg where he gained a scholarship to attend both Bundaberg and Maryborough Grammar Schools. At the age of 17 he gained a further scholarship to attend Hurlstone Agricultural High School in Sydney, a boarding school which specialised in agricultural subjects. From Hurlstone, William attended Hawksbury Agricultural College, another boarding institution. His younger brother, Albert, attended Hawksbury around the same time. After graduation, William returned to Queensland where he took up a selection near Gayndah. In order to satisfy the conditions of the lease to his selection, William was required to live on the block and to build a number of improvements. He was not clear of his obligations until the beginning of 1916, at which time he informed his former high school that he was at last free to “Join the colours.”
 
William Goodchild presented himself for enlistment in Brisbane on 1st March 1916. He was 23 years old and named his father William Snr of Fairymead Sugar Mill in Bundaberg as his next of kin. William was placed into a depot battalion at Enoggera and in June was posted to a Corporal’s School after which he was allocated to the 15th reinforcements of the 26th Infantry Battalion; part of the 7th Brigade of the 2nd Division AIF. In September of 1916, William was promoted to Temporary Sergeant. He would only retain this rank while the reinforcements were on a troop transport. On 7th September, the 100 or so reinforcements under the leadership of a couple of 2nd Lieutenants and temporary NCOs boarded the “Clan McGillivray” in Brisbane. William had allocated 4/- of his 5/- daily pay to be set aside into a bank account in Bundaberg.
 
The reinforcements landed in Plymouth on 3rd November 1916 and marched out to camp at Rollestone. William reverted to the rank of private but on 23rd November he was promoted to Acting Corporal. The 26thBattalion, which William would eventually join, had experienced a tough time during the last six months of 1916 at Pozieres and Flers during the Somme Campaign. The entire 7th Brigade was urgently in need of reinforcements.
 
On 14th December, William began his deployment to the 26th by boarding a cross channel ferry in Southampton. When he arrived at the huge British training and transit facility at Etaples in France William was placed into a segregation camp as a precaution against one of a number of infectious diseases which were endemic in the winter of 1916/17. At the same time, William reverted back to the rank of Private. On the 26th January, William finally marched in to the 26th Battalion lines in the rear areas between Albert and Vignacourt. The 26th spent the remainder of January and all of February in fatigue work such as salvage or road mending interspersed with periods in the support lines at the front.
 
With the coming of Spring in March 1917, the German defenders on the Somme began a strategic withdrawal back to a preprepared defensive line which the Germans called the Seigfreid Line but which the British called the Hindenburg Line. As the Germans withdrew, the British armies cautiously followed, until they ran up against the Hindenburg Line at Noreuil, Lagnicourt and Bullecourt. As the 26th Battalion took part in following the Germans, William was again promoted to temporary corporal due to Corporal Bauer going missing.
 
The General in charge of the 5th British Army was tasked with attacking and capturing parts of the Hindenburg defences in April 1917, and he would employ two Australian divisions in his plans for Bullecourt. The first attempt on 11th April was a complete fiasco. Gough had been persuaded that a new super weapon, the tank, could be used to smash through the German wire. All of the tanks either broke down, got lost on the way to the start line or were easy targets for the field artillery. The casualties suffered by the 4th Division of the AIF were exacerbated by the fact when the plan did not work on the first day, Gough used the self-same plan the next day. The Australian War Correspondent Charles Bean described 1st Bullecourt having as much chance of success as a plan to capture the moon. Two weeks later, this time employing the 2ndDivision which included William as a corporal in charge of a section of infantry, Gough threw his forces against the wire, with predictable results. During the attack, William received a bullet wound to his left buttock on 27th April.
 
Progressing first to a Casualty Clearing Station and then to a hospital at Rouen, William was eventually loaded onto a hospital ship for the journey to Southampton, and from there to the Birmingham War Hospital, where he reverted to the rank of Private. Once his wound was healed, William was discharged to furlough on the 6th June and reported to the Wareham Depot two weeks later. By the end of July, William was back with his mates in the 26th in the rear areas around Poperinghe in Belgium. A week later he was finally promoted permanently to the rank of corporal.
 
While William had been recovering in England, the British Forces under Douglas Haig shifted their focus from France to Belgium with a plan to drive out of the Ypres salient towards the Belgian channel ports, thus denying the German navy of an easy route to the Atlantic. The general in charge of this offensive, which became formally the 3rd Battle of Ypres, had a more considered approach than the hot-headed Gough. Plumer’s plan was take small “bites” out of the German defences with overwhelming force and “hold” those gains as a springboard to the next objective. All five divisions of the AIF would play a part in this offensive which began in June 1917 at Messines. When William joined his battalion and the rest of the 2nd Division, planning and preparation was underway for the start of the “bite and hold” advance beginning in the ancient city of Ypres and heading east along the line of the Menin Road across the fields of Flanders towards the Passchendaele Ridge.
 
For its part in this grand strategy, the 7th Brigade was put into the fight at Menin Road in September and then again at Broodseinde Ridge in early October. Plumer was fortunate with the weather in those early battles but by the middle of October, the low lying swampy ground of the battlefields were turned into a sea of stinking, clinging mud with the arrival of unseasonal flooding rains. Men, horses and wagons became stuck in the mud. Artillery sank into the ooze after the firing of a single shot and had to be man hauled out.
 
As the Flanders campaign floundered, Douglas Haig made a decision which condemned him to history when he ordered that the assault on Passchendaele should continue, whatever the cost. It was obvious to the field commanders that the conditions were exhausting their troops even before the reached the front line areas but Haig continued to order assault after assault, all of which bogged down. To compound the difficulties for the infantrymen in the trenches, the German artillery continued to hit the front and support lines with shrapnel and gas, mainly mustard gas.
 
Red Cross reports relate that on 29th October while occupying the support trenches at Passchendaele, Cpl William Goodchild was hit in the leg by a gas shell which plunged through the roof of the dugout he was occupying. William’s leg was fractured and he was also seriously affected by gas. William was evacuated by light rail to the 10th Casualty Clearing Station at Poperinghe. His leg fracture was serious but not fatal and initially, witnesses stated that he was not badly hurt. However, William succumbed to the effects of gas and died at the CCS on 31st October aged 24. William was buried in the Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery adjacent to the CCS with military honours.
 
When permanent headstones were erected by the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission, William’s parents chose the following inscription:
WHO FOR THE JOY SET BEFORE HIM
ENDURED THE CROSS