ANDERSON, William Leslie
| Service Number: | 7 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 1 March 1916, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia |
| Last Rank: | Lance Corporal |
| Last Unit: | 10th Light Trench Mortar Battery |
| Born: | Nhill, Victoria, Australia, 1 March 1891 |
| Home Town: | Nhill, Hindmarsh, Victoria |
| Schooling: | Boyeo State School, Victoria, Australia |
| Occupation: | Labourer |
| Died: | Killed in Action, Belgium, 10 May 1917, aged 26 years |
| Cemetery: |
Strand Military Cemetery, Ploegsteert, Wallonie, Belgium Strand Military Cemetery Plot I, Row C, Grave 9 |
| Memorials: | Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour |
World War 1 Service
| 1 Mar 1916: | Enlisted AIF WW1, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia | |
|---|---|---|
| 27 May 1916: | Involvement AIF WW1, Private, 7, 39th Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '18' embarkation_place: Melbourne embarkation_ship: HMAT Ascanius embarkation_ship_number: A11 public_note: '' | |
| 27 May 1916: | Embarked AIF WW1, Private, 7, 39th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Ascanius, Melbourne | |
| 10 May 1917: | Involvement AIF WW1, Lance Corporal, 7, 10th Light Trench Mortar Battery, --- :awm_ww1_roll_of_honour_import: awm_service_number: 7 awm_unit: 10 Light Trench Mortar awm_rank: Lance Corporal awm_died_date: 1917-05-10 |
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Add my storyBiography contributed by Stephen Brooks
William’s parents were Robert Anderson and Edith Jane Tylden Chisolm. They had a farm in a small area called Kinimakatka about 12 kilometres south of Nhill in Victoria. The mother, Edith, died in 1891 age 23, when William Leslie was barely a month old. Robert Anderson the father married his wife’s sister Harriet in 1892 and they had another nine children.
One of these, a half-brother to Lance Corporal William Leslie Anderson, Pte. Albert Robert Anderson 14th Battalion AIF, was killed in action 31 May 1918, aged 21.
William Leslie Anderson attended the Boyeo State School which was unfortunately built beside a swamp and was surrounded by water much of the time in wet years, which meant children arrived in boats or waded knee-deep.
William worked as a labourer in the district. He was a quiet man, who reportedly “made a large circle of friends on account of his quiet and unassuming disposition and his straightforwardness”. He was reported to be a good soldier and was promoted to Lance Corporal in the 10th Light Trench Mortar Battery. He was killed in in Belgium near the town of Ploegsteert, when a German shell exploded near the entrance to dugout from which he had just emerged. The man he had been talking to, his sergeant, Harry Buzolich, was also killed by the same shell.
Lance Corporal William Anderson was buried in the Strand Military Cemetery in Ploegsteert Wood, beside Buzolich, by an army chaplain who had previously been an Anglican minister in Nhill. Robert and Harriet Anderson, his stepmother, in Nhill, received letters from their son’s comrades in Belgium, one of which said:
He was very popular, and all the members of the unit feel his loss very much. His death coming so suddenly will make his loss hard to bear, but you will have some consolation in knowing that his death was so sudden that he did not suffer, and that his face and body were not badly mutilated.
Chaplain Best wrote, “We have lost a good friend, a fine soldier, and a real man.”
Biography
Son of Robert Anderson and the late Edith Jane Anderson Native of Tarranginnie, Victoria
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