Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

"KILLED IN ACTION. AN ANZAC ENGINEER

Killed in action on July 23 — the day on which Pozieres fell to the desperate assault of the Anzacs and the British Territorials who played so glorious a part in the second phase of the Battle of the Somme — Sergeant Walter Victor Gray, surviving the perils of Gallipoli, died the death of a soldier on a battlefield in France. Sergeant Gray, who was 27 years of age, was the elder son of Mr Edwin Gray, of Park street, Prince's Hill. He left Australia in 1914 with the Second (Victorian) Field Company of Engineers, and was one of those who took part in the heroic landing at Sari Bair. His company shared in the glories won by the Third Brigade, and it fell to their lot to hide their entrenching tools in the scrub, and go forward as infantry until they could find an opportunity, after the first blind rush had spent itself, to carry out the duties which Engineers are expected to fulfil. His letters home told how, when reinforcements had arrived, he and his fellows retired to the beach, where they formed piers and made roads under fire in order that the landing of other troops might be facilitated and the wounded conveyed to the hospital ships. While so occupied, he saw one of his own relatives carried back as a casualty, and a little later was inspired, if inspiration were needed, by the sight of a tall Sikh, his hand shot away, returning for medical aid, and masking his agony with a stoic smile. Gray was one of those, who, in the afternoon of the day of the landing, helped to haul up the cliffs the first Australian gun to be landed in Gallipoli. Later, the Engineers were engaged in providing a water supply for the troops, in constructing roads farther inland, and in erecting the defences which were absolutely vital to the successful tenure of the newly-won Turkish soil. The risks they took are known to those who are aware of the conditions, of iife and death in the days ''when Hope was a phantom scattering chaff, when Resolve wore thin under friction of disaster, when the wheels of Life ran very low and men thanked God that they could die."

But each remembered through it all that Kitchener, the man that made their armies, was also an engineer; and nobly they upheld the honor of a great branch of a great service. After having been for four months on the peninsula, and having gained his corporal's stripes, Gray was sent back to Egypt in charges of stores. He made repeated applications to be al-lowed to return to the fighting line, and arrangements were in train to that end when the evacuation enabled him to rejoin his comrades, not in Gallipoll, but in Egypt, to which the survivors of the Second Field Company returned. Here they were engaged in making preparations whose value was proved when the First and Second Light Horse Brigades defeated the Turks at Katia and Romani. Corporal Gray was one of the men who were detailed to construct and place in order a desert railway, and he told with pride how locomotives were rescued from the scrap-heap, where they had rusted for years, and turned to good account and active service once more. In this respect his experience in the Newport Workshops, in London and at the great electrical works at Schenectady, U.S.A., stood him in good stead. He had visited America when he made a tour of the world in 1912 and 1913, and portion of the time, was spent at Schenectady, where equipment was be-ing made for the electrification of the Victorian railways. He had previously been in the employ of a London firm which was connected with the American works, so that he was enabled to apply on the desert sands the knowledge he had acquired among the fly-wheels and dynamos of England and America.

After Corporal Gray left Egypt for France, he found himself among friends as soon as he landed, for during his stay in England, he had several times crossed the Channel, and France, its people and its tongue, were familiar to him. Soon after landing, he was promoted to the rank of sergeant, and was among those whose duty it was to repair and reconstruct the trenches which the Anzacs were to occupy. He was billeted with farming folk, whose relations with the Australians were such that on one occasion they insisted upon honoring, in champagne the birthday of one of the tall brown soldiers from a sunnier south than their own. It was during the great offensive that Sergeant Gray met his death, but in what manner, is not yet known. The brief entry of the official casualty list, "Killed in action," is all that tells the tale. But those who knew him know that the manner of his going was such as befits the man he was — a soldier and the son of a soldier. He leaves behind him a brother, Corporal Cyril Wentworth Gray, at present of Duntroon Military College, to take his place in the fighting line." - from the Melbourne Herald 15 Aug 1916 (nla.gov.au)