Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Sydney Leonard Williams is my great uncle and my father who was born in 1917 was named Leonard after he died at Gallipoli.

My wife and I were in Gallipoli for the exact 100th anniversary and laid a poppy on his name on the Lone pine memorial.

He was farmer from Derby in Tasmania.

He signed up shortly before he left Australia on 4 June 1915 and he was dead about 54 days later on 8 August 1915.

He was in the 15th Division commanded by Monash.

This is my current understanding of what happened to him.

I think they had been set an impossible task of taking Hill 971 in one night. They were the extreme left hook of the offensive. They marched near north beach and were meant to turn into the start of a deep gully called Argyle Dere. Unfortunately, they improvised a short cut through another narrow gully so they came into the Argyle Dere about 500m after it had started. The short cut caused three problems. 1.The short cut was very narrow and they slowed down badly. 2.There were Turkish stragglers who sniped them as they entered the main Argyle Dere. If they had come up from the beach they would have had an easier time clearing the snipers. 3. Monash's plan depended on turning left after a precise distance from the start of the Dere. Coming into it after the start of the Dere meant he could not be sure of the turn. In the dark they turned too early and did not get to the branch that lead directly to Hill 971. Instead they entered what is now called Australian Gully which lead to much lower ridge that contained a wheat field. This field was enfiladed by well sited machine guns on the high ground to the left of Hill 971.The bullets grazed the whole field and 15th battalion is said to have melted away.

From what I can gather from the file, he was shot in the stomach either in the upper part of Australian Gully or on the edge of the wheat field. I suspect it was sniping by Turkish stragglers and not the machine gunning. His body was seen in the retreat but unfortunately the 15th were unable to retrieve him and many others.

His service file reveals his mother had heard false reports he had been seen by mates in a hospital in Cairo. She doggedly clung to that hope and bombarded the army with letters. My great grandmother, Blanche Helen Williams (nee Beswick) appears to have been a very formidable lady.