Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

HUNT, WILLIAM HENRY
SERVICE NO. 1347
13TH BATTALION
William Henry Hunt was born on the 30th October 1891 at Robinsville near Bulli. Later renamed Thirroul NSW. He was the eldest son of George Charles Hunt of Sherbrooke (a coal miner & timber getter) and Ellen Herbert (nee Broadbent). As an infant he moved to Helensburgh NSW and his brothers and sisters were all born there Thomas, Alice, Francis, Edith and Dorothy. He attended school in Helensburgh with his brothers and sisters. As a boy from the age of 8 he would go with his father and get the timber with a bullock team.
Bill enlisted in the AIF on 13 November 1914, at Liverpool. He was 23 years old, he was 5ft 5 ½” tall when he enlisted. He was Church of England. He was a labourer.
The Battalion left Liverpool camp and caught the train to Central and marched from Central to Woolloomooloo to board their ship. Bill sailed from Sydney on the HMAT Seang Bee on 11th February 1915. He left in rough seas, the food was good. He said the soldiers were always singing and whistling. His was sent to Alexandria and boarded a troop ship to Lemnos.
He took part in the landing on Gallipoli on 25th April 1915. They were now in the fighting, passing many dead or wounded. Bill was bearded & exhausted. Disease was a real enemy. Bill was in hospital and returned on 8th December 1915. The snow came and the flies left. It was the first time most of them had seen snow. When they were not being bombarded by the Turks they were building underground quarters. They were always wet which was a change from the dust. The time came to leave Gallipoli. Bill and his mates arrived at Lemnos and had some well-earned leave and after Christmas headed for Ismailia.
Bill was happy to be going to France. Every night they experienced heavy fire. Water was scarce as it was required for the machine guns. One night when Bill was on guard and his mates slept he saw an enemy soldier coming towards him in the dark. He could not fire a shot because he would give away their position so attached his bayonet and he leapt out of the trench and charged towards him and stabbed him with his bayonet. He went to withdrawn his bayonet and it would not come that was when he realised he had stabbed a stump and it was not going to give him back his bayonet. So he returned to his post and did not tell a soul.
On the 11th August at Pozieres Bill was badly stabbed in the right arm with a bayonet. Still he remained fighting as they needed every man. He was taken to Rouen field hospital. His arm was so badly damaged he was out of the fighting for a while. He returned to the battalion on 5/9/1916. Only to be shot in his right index finger on the 21st September 1916 he was admitted to hospital. He was sent to England. As a result of his wounds he was left with a paralysed digit finger.
He was returned home on the Ulysis. He arrived back in Australia and was discharged on 18th May 1917. He received a pension of .25 pence (25 cents) a fortnight for the loss of the function of his finger.
He received the 1914/15 medal, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
On his return home he learnt his beloved mother had died while he was fighting in France and his young brother Francis Joseph only 19 enlisted on 13th March 1917 and embarked to France on the 10th May 1917. Francis was gassed at Bussy Les Daours in the Somme and died on the 12th June 1918. Bill had now lost his mother and brother in a very short time.
After the war work was hard to find and being both talented his brother Tom and he went for an audition at the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney and got the job as a pair of song and dance men. The pay was not great so they were always looking for something to earn more. Bill met a man who was going to the bush to cut down trees for logging so he decided he would join him. He made quite a good bit of money, which he saved.
Bill was always popular at a party he could recite all those great poems of Banjo Paterson with great depth of feeling, and could bring tears to the eyes of his audience.
He could sing a good tune and was a good tap dancer as well as Ballroom dancer. He was a good dresser also and had gold put into his front teeth, which was all the rage in those days.
When he came back to the city, he found that the government was offering training in the trades to returned soldiers. So he decided to do a course as a hand car tyre maker (a vulcaniser, someone who vulcanizes rubber to improve its strength and resiliency), at Perdrios at Drummoyne, which later became, Dunlop Perdrios. While working there he met Mary Kelly when he went to rent a room her father (Tom Kelly) had advertised. Mary was working at Curzons in Sydney and Bill and Mary became good friends and on their first outing they went to the zoo, in a rowing boat. Mary was terrified and didn’t enjoy the zoo thinking of the trip back.
Bill and Mary fell in love and Bill applied for a loan and built a house at 50 Rawson St, Lidcombe and they were married in 1921 and moved into the house. Mary’s father Tom sold his shop and he and his children moved into the Lidcombe house with Bill and Mary.
The Great Depression came. Bill couldn’t keep up the payments on the home loan, as other veterans in the street. These were all veterans of Gallipoli or the Western Front. They were all put out of their homes.
Bill took his family to Kanwal where he was given some land to farm. Then a fire destroyed this.
Bill had difficulty getting work because of his injuries so he studied hard and sat for and passed the nurses exam with flying colours and was employed as a nurse at Lidcombe Hospital. He worked hard there for 17 years. Bill travelled all the way from Clovelly to Lidcombe taking a tram, train and bus. These ANZACs were a tough breed.
Bill always had problems with black outs as a result of the war, and had to carry identification with him so people could get him home or they would ring his wife, Mary to get him. William and Mary had 6 children 5 girls and a son.
Bill passed away 28th May 1965 aged 74yrs he is buried at Rookwood Cemetery.