Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

William Henry Thomas Kelson was 19 years of age when he joined the army which when you think of it was a very young age. His occupation was a driver for which he probably drove cars and other vehicles around carrying special cargo or people inside. William grew up in South Australia in the town of Peterhead. William had a tattoo on his left arm, he was 5.7ft, weighed 126 lbs and had blue eyes and brown hair. After the war he was living in Bayer street Norwood, South Australia. He abided by the religion of the Church of England, he survived the war and came back on the 5 of Aprill 1919.

William joined the war because he didn’t want to look bad for not joining because around those times if you didn’t join the war as a man you would be teased and not classified as a cool kid, the Australians would not be happy with you if you did not join. There where signs around the town saying “Australia needs you” and if you didn’t join people would say that you were letting your fellow Australians down. William went to one of the many areas of South Australia where you could sign up and signed up for the war there on the spot. William trained for the war in Morphetville which in the summer was very dry, hot and vast. Morphetville is not far out from Adelaide. The role that he signed up for was Lance Corporal in the 27th Battalion, when being signed to be Lance Corporal your job was to take care of a group of men usually around the size of 100 men and keep them in line and always behaving at war.

They fought in the Western Front from 1916 to 1918, which was a very long time spent in those dirty and very muddy trenches. Australia joined WW1 because Britain really needed help in the war. William enlisted in the 27th battalion, which fought in Gallipoli and on the Western Front.

The army had a couple of choices when choosing which side arm to use in the war the pistol they could choose from were a Enfield revolver .476 caliber or a Webely revolver .455 caliber they only had one choice when it came to the rifle because they always had to use a long nosed Lee-Enfield rifle .303 caliber, they always had a big long knife sticking out the end of the rifle which was called a bayonet which was used for close combat so that the soldiers didn’t have to use all their ammunition. William came out of the war alive but only came back with medals you get given for participating in the war and was not able to get any special service medals. He was in the war for exactly 4 years 153 days.

Anzac stands for the Australian or New Zealand Army Corps, the qualities for being an Anzac is to be brave, tough and ready for anything. The Anzac Spirit was showed by the soldier who took the most care of people and put their body on the line to go out in the battle field and save their fellow soldiers, like the soldiers who ran into open fire to pick up an injured soldier back to the trenches.