Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

William Henry RAWLINS #5402 26th Battalion

William Rawlins was born in Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire to parents William and Mary. According to his mother, the young William attended Saint Thomas’ Roman Catholic School and upon leaving school worked as a baker’s delivery van man. At some stage William Rawlins befriended William Sandford. The two Williams, aged in their early twenties, emigrated together and landed in Brisbane in 1912. It would appear that after making contact with a Charles Gear of South Brisbane, the two friends obtained employment in Moore. Rawlins worked as a clerk in a sawmill and Sandford was employed by a Mr McIvor.

Unusually, the two friends did not enlist together, which may have ensured that they served in the same unit. William Rawlins was the first to take the train from Moore to Ipswich and then to the Adelaide Street recruiting depot where he presented himself on 17th March 1916. He stated his age as 27 years and six months. His height is recorded as 5’ 2”; which is considerably below the minimum standard for recruitment at that time.

William was drafted as part of the 14th reinforcements for the 26th Battalion. The 26th was part of the 7th Brigade of the 2nd Division AIF. William boarded the ‘Itonus’ in Brisbane on 8th August and arrived in Plymouth on 18th October 1916. The second half of 1916 had proven a tough initiation for the newly constructed divisions of the AIF. The Somme campaign had created enormous casualties for all four of the AIF Divisions and reinforcements were needed to bring battalions up to strength. William was posted to join his battalion on 3rd December 1916; he finally was taken on strength on 19th December.

The winter of 1916/17 in Northern France was particularly bitter and the Australian infantry were exposed to snow, ice and mud which caused outbreaks of pneumonia, influenza and trench feet. On 5th March 1917, William reported sick with a fever. He spent a month at a casualty clearing station.

The Flanders campaign began in June 1917 with the opening battle at Messines. On 27th June, William reported sick. He was diagnosed with trench fever and spent the next three months recovering. William rejoined the battalion in time to take part in the attack on Broodseinde Ridge on 4th October and a failed attack on the village of Passchendaele on 29th October. During the winter of 1917/18, the Australian Divisions were billeted in the Poperinghe area and many of the men were granted their first extended leave. William was granted a two week leave to England and he no doubt took the opportunity to visit his family in Stoke.

The winter of 1917/18 had been a restful time for the Australian divisions. With the coming of spring, the British commanders were aware that a small window of opportunity presented itself to the German commander Ludendorff who had at his disposal a large number of troops that could be redirected from the eastern front once the armistice was signed with Lenin’s Bolshevik government.

Operation Michael began on 21st March 1918 with a full scale attack directed along the line of the Somme River across battlefields that had been won at such great cost by the British forces in 1916 and 1917. Within a week, the German forces had progressed as far as the confluence of the Somme and Ancre Rivers, and within striking distance of the city of Amiens. The British 5th Army, which had been holding the line in this sector, broke and retreated in disarray. To halt the advance, the British Commander Douglas Haig ordered as many brigades of Australians as possible to be rushed south to stem the German advance.

The 26th Battalion as part of the 7th Brigade moved from the billets in Belgium to the Somme in early April. The German advance was contained but not halted until two AIF Brigades retook the vital village of Villers Bretonneux on Anzac Day 1918.

The months of May and June were a time of consolidation and active patrolling in no man’s land. On 4th July at Hamel a limited attack by a purely Australian force (with the exception of a company of men from the Illinois National Guard) secured a significant victory. The 26th were involved in the attack at Hamel which had been meticulously planned and executed so that the objective was reached only three minutes after the estimated time.

On 14th July, at Monument Wood, the 26th Battalion were responsible for salvaging a German tank that had become bogged. The tank, named Mephisto, became a much valued item and in recognition of the 26th’s Queensland heritage was gifted to the state of Queensland as a war trophy. Mephisto is now one of the primary exhibits of the Queensland Museum at Southbank.

On 8th August, the allies launched their biggest assault of the war. In a carefully planned attack along a fifteen mile front, artillery, aircraft, infantry, tanks and cavalry broke through the German lines into open country beyond. The morale of the enemy was falling and the British, and particularly the Australians , were in the ascendency. Ludendorff, the German Field Commander, called 8th August the “Blackest Day”.

After Amiens, the allied forces continued to push and harass the Germans back along the Somme valley. In late August, the action had progressed to the fortress town of Peronne and the small hill which overlooked the town; Mont St Quentin. A major obstacle in the way of the advancing allied forces was the Somme Canal which paralleled the Somme River as the river turned west at Peronne. On the morning of the 29th August, the 26th Battalion captured the west bank of the Somme Canal. During this engagement 29 men were killed, one of whom was William Rawlins. William was buried at the Eterpigney Communal Cemetery just south of Peronne. When headstones were erected by the IWGC his family back in Staffordshire chose the following inscription:

CHRIST SHALL LINK THE BROKEN CHAIN CLOSER WHEN WE MEET AGAIN.