Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Arthur William Gordon Smith was one of the many young men who embarked on the journey to Europe during World War 1. Arthur William Gordon Smith was born in Adelaide, South Australia on 14 June 1894. He grew up in the suburb of Norwood. His religion was Methodist.  Before enlisting for war, Arthur’s occupation was a film producer. During the time that he worked in film producing, cinemas started to gain popularity and more local films were produced in South Australia.

Arthur enlisted as a sapper on the 1st of December 1917, at the age of 23.  At the time he was single. He had brown hair, blue eyes, and a fair complexion. He was 5 foot 9 inches tall and weighed 160 pounds (72 kilograms). From his height and weight, it seems like he was well-built and was perfect for the war. In some ways, this was rather unfortunate because, as it turned out, he never actually was to serve in a theatre of war.  

After enlisting ten months earlier, Arthur finally embarked from Sydney on 16th of October 1918 on board the SS Malta, ready for action and heading to the Middle East. Before he was on the ship, he had a temporary rank of a corporal. During the time that he was on the ship, he reverted to the rank of a sapper, and I believe that he remained in this rank for four more months. Corporal and Sapper are two very different roles and do completely different duties. A corporal’s responsibility included leading a team of soldiers as well as completing different missions. The role of a sapper included mostly engineering duties. These engineering duties included fortifications, demolitions, bridge building, cleaning minefields preparing fields and buildings and working on road and airfield constructions.

He disembarked in Basra, Iraq on 19th of November 1918. This was, of course, eight days after the war was officially ended, and Germany surrendered, on 11th of November.

Well after the war, in 1942, he wrote a letter to the army wondering if he was eligible to receive the Victory Medal. A short time later he received a response from the army. They stated that he was unable to receive the Victory Medal and said that “this medal was restricted to those who actually served on the strength of a unit in a definite theatre of the war, on or before midnight 11th November” and continues on to say that he did not disembark from Basra until 19/11/1918, which was a few days after the war ended.  

He did not appear to have an easy time once he actually arrived overseas as he was admitted to hospital in mid-December and spent most of January and February in hospital suffering from appendicitis. In late January, when in India, he was invalided due to his appendicitis. He took an H.S (hospital ship) to Bombay on 4/2/18 – 9/2/18 and stayed in Bombay to be treated and to recover. He stayed there until making his way back home to Australia.

He embarked from Bombay, India to return home to Australia. It does not state the exact date that he returned home or when the ship arrived back in Australia. But there is a letter from the army that was sent on the 20 of June 1919 to his mother and father.  This letter stated that he was on his way from Bombay and was heading back home to Australia. On the way home, it was likely that he would tranship at Colombo, Sri Lanka.

I believe that Arthur William Gordon Smith showed great ANZAC spirit because it seemed like he wanted to join the war and fight for his country but unfortunately, he got there too late and also became sick, so was unable to fight or serve for his country.

Bibliography

 AIF PROJECT 2016, accessed 3 March 2018, <https://www.aif.adfa.edu.au/search>.

AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL 2016, accessed 10 March 2018, <https://www.awm.gov.au/people/roll-search>.

National Archives of Australia Website 2016, accessed 15 March 2018, <http://www.naa.gov.au>.