Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

# 7732 MICKAN William Alfred                      9th Battalion
 
William Mickan was born at Wodonga on the Victorian side of the Murray River on 3rd January 1897. His parents were John and Christianne Mickan. The family moved north to Queensland, settling on the Darling Downs before moving up to the South Burnett where they established a dairy farm at Reedy Creek between Kumbia and Kingaroy. William worked on the family farm.
 
William Mickan travelled by train from Kingaroy to Gympie and on to Maryborough to enlist on 9th July 1917. He was 20 years old and presented as a well built young man 5’10” in height and weighing a little less than 12 stone in weight. William stated his occupation as farmer and nominated his father of “Sunnyside” Reedy Creek via Kingaroy as his next of kin. He also advised the recruiters that he had previously been rejected for military service due to a varicocele (an enlargement of the scrotum and common amongst rural workers). On the second occasion, William was accepted into the AIF which may have been due to the desperate need for reinforcements.
 
William was given a rail warrant to travel to Brisbane and on to Enoggera where he was taken into the 11thDepot Battalion for initial training. On 21st August, William was granted seven days pre-embarkation home leave. Upon his return to camp from leave, William was drafted into the 26th Reinforcements of the 9thBattalion and was appointed acting corporal. The reinforcements boarded a troop train for Sydney where they embarked on the “Euripides” on 31st October 1917. After a voyage via South Africa and Sierra Leone, the reinforcements disembarked at Devonport in England on 26th December and were marched into the 3rd Training Battalion at Sutton Veney where William reverted to the rank of private.
 
William was reappointed to the rank of Lance Corporal in January 1918 and after recovering from a bout of influenza was sent to the school of musketry at Hayling Island in Portsmouth Harbour where he qualified as a Lewis gunner. On 29th April 1918, William was posted to France, travelling via the Australian Infantry Depot at Etaples to finally join his battalion, the 9th, on the 9th May 1918.
 
Throughout the winter of 1917/18, the five divisions of the AIF were billeted in and around Poperinghe in Belgian Flanders. The British command was certain that the Germans would launch an attack in the spring of 1918 and guessed that this offensive would take place in the Ypres salient in Belgium. To counter this threat, General Douglas Haig had placed the AIF in Belgium to meet the anticipated advance.
 
When the German spring offensive did begin, it was aimed not at the Ypres salient but along the valley of the Somme where the opposing forces had fought some of the bloodiest battles of 1916. The German storm troops quickly rolled back the British 5th Army and advanced westward to threaten the vital communication hub of Amiens. Haig’s response was to shift four of the five Australian divisions south to defend Amiens whilst the 1st Division, which included the 9th Battalion, remained in the Hazebrouck area, near the French / Belgian border to meet any thrust in that area. When William joined his battalion, the 9th was rotating in and out of the line with other units of the division while also engaging in trench improvements and carrying supplies up from the division and brigade dumps at Meteren. On 21st July 1918, William reported to the 3rd Field Ambulance suffering the effects of chlorine gas. He was transferred to a casualty clearing station to recover before rejoining his battalion which by that stage had also been sent south to join the rest of the AIF which was then under the command of the Australian Corps Commander, Lieutenant General John Monash, who had been given the role in June 1918.
 
 
Monash planned a massive offensive to begin on the 8th August which involved all five AIF divisions, three Canadian Divisions and two British divisions. The plan called for the coordinated deployment of tanks, artillery, aerial support and infantry. The 1st Division AIF had not arrived in time to be included in the battle plan and was instead placed in reserve. The 8th August battle, the Battle of Amiens, was a remarkable success with an advance of almost 15 miles, thousands of the enemy taken prisoner and huge amounts of weaponry captured. The German Commander Ludendorff called 8th August the “blackest day for the German army.”
 
Monash’s headquarters at Bertangles was besieged by well-wishers including the French President and plans were under way for the King, George V, to visit and bestow a knighthood on Monash. All of these events took up valuable time which ought to have been spent by Monash and his staff in planning follow up operations. Plans for operations on the following days suffered from a lack of the usual high standard and in any event, the enemy now knew what was coming and prepared accordingly.
 
On 10th August, the 9th Battalion and the other three battalions of the 3rd Brigade were tasked with an advance supported by artillery against heavily defended posts around Proyart. The 9th Battalion war diary records that the battalion suffered heavy casualties from enfilading machine gun fire and accurate artillery. During this engagement, William Mickan was listed as killed in action. He was originally buried in a British Cemetery at Vauvillers but at the end of the war was reinterred in the Heath Cemetery at Harbonnieres.
 
His parents, who had moved to “Greenview” Wondai, chose the following inscription for his headstone: THY WILL BE DONE.