Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

# 5449 SORLEY William Peter            26th Battalion
 
William “Will” Sorley was the son of Peter and Lois Sorley. Bill advised recruiters that he had born in Ipswich but his father when completing the Roll of Honour Circular stated he had been born at Mt Gravatt, a southern suburb of Brisbane. Peter Sorley also stated his son had attended Eight Mile Plains State School, an area neighbouring Mt Gravatt. It is therefore more likely that the family lived for a time in the Eight Mile Plains area before relocating to “Montrose” at Bell.
 
Will Sorley would appear to have worked around the Western Downs district as a labourer before the war. He also stated that he had served for two years with the Australian Light Horse prior to enlistment. Will presented himself to the Darling Downs Recruitment Depot in Toowoomba on 24th January 1916. He gave his age as 28 years and named his father, Peter Sorley of “Montrose” Bell, as his next of kin. Will’s younger brother, Stan, had enlisted in September 1915.
 
After spending some time in a depot battalion at Enoggera, Will was drafted into the 14th reinforcements of the 26th Battalion in April 1916. He embarked for overseas on the “Itonus” in Brisbane on 8th August and arrived in Plymouth in Devon on 18th October. The reinforcements were despatched by train to the 7thBrigade Training Battalion at Rollestone on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. In December 1916, Will spent 3 weeks in Parkhouse Military Hospital with mumps. In the middle of January 1917, Will was posted to the large Australian Infantry Depot at Etaples on the French coast and one month later was taken on strength by his unit, the 26th Battalion, near Flers on the road to Bapaume.
 
Will was only in the 26th lines for two days before he reported sick and was transferred to the 3rd Casualty Clearing Station and then to hospital at Le Treport. Will spent almost 4 months in hospital with what his file recorded as P.U.O. (pyrexia of unknown origin). This was almost certainly nephritis, sometimes known as trench fever. He was discharged to a convalescent depot in late July and by the 26th August was back with his battalion in Belgium.
 
The major offensive by the British Forces in 1917 centred on the Ypres salient in Belgian Flanders. It began in June with the assault on the Messines Ridge and once the enemy were dislodged from that strategic vantage point, the real operations could begin. The strategy involved using a series of advances with limited objectives; the so called “bite and hold.”
The first of these assaults was against the Gheluvelt Plateau and Westhoek Ridge on 20th September 1917, in a battle usually referred to as Menin Road. The 26th Battalion, as part of the 2nd Division of the AIF would go into action at Menin Road and Will, although he had only been back with the battalion a month was involved. By all accounts, Menin Road was a major success. The 26th, supported by two other battalions in the 7th brigade reached their objective and began to dig in while forward defensive posts were established. A number of men, including Will, were recommended to be awarded a “mentioned in despatches.”
 
With the success of Menin Road, a further advance at Polygon Wood at the end of September brought the British Forces and particularly the Australians up against the Broodseinde Ridge and the strategic villages of Zonnebeke and Passchendaele. On 4th October, the 26th as part of the 7th Brigade, advanced up the slope of Broodseinde Ridge under the protective umbrella of a creeping artillery barrage, to be met by a German advance coming up the reverse slope. The Australians drove the German troops back and established a new front line utilising the same technique of forward defensive posts as had been developed at Menin Road.
 
It is recorded that Will and a number of others were manning one of the defensive posts on 5th October when the position was heavily shelled. A platoon lieutenant told the Red Cross that “many men were killed ….. but very few bodies remained to be buried.” It appears that the commanding officer of the 26th wrote to Will’s family informing them of the circumstances of his death, and promised to ensure that his personal effects would be sent to them.
 
Peter and Lois Sorley wrote on several occasions to the authorities enquiring about their son’s personal possessions but either they were lost or pilfered and nothing remained of their son for them to cherish. The recommendation for the award of “Mentioned in Despatches” was not proceeded with as this award could not be awarded posthumously. William Sorley, aged 30, is one of 56,000 men, including 6,178 Australians, who served in the Ypres campaign and who have no known grave. Their names are inscribed on the Portland Stone Tablets under the arches of the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing in the City of Ypres.
Since the 1930s, with the brief interval of the German occupation in the Second World War, the City of Ypres has conducted a ceremony at the Memorial at dusk each evening to commemorate those who died in the Ypres campaign and who are remembered on the Menin Gate. The ceremony concludes with the laying of wreaths, the recitation of the ode, and the playing of the Last Post by the city’s bugle corps
The commemoration of the Menin Gate Memorial on 24 July 1927 so moved the Australian war artist Will Longstaff that he painted 'The Menin Gate at Midnight', which portrays a ghostly army of the dead marching past the Menin Gate. The painting, which now hangs in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, toured Australia during the 1920s and 30s and drew huge crowds. The painting in one of the AWM’s most prised exhibits.