Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Son of J. Miller, Logan Road, Mount Gravatt, Brisbane, Queensland

William Miller was born on 18th December 1898. At the time of his enlistment, he reported that he had been apprenticed as a tailor to Rothwells in the city for 5 years. William lived with his parents at Logan Rd, Mount Gravatt and gave his father; Mr J Miller as his next of kin. At the time of his enlistment on 23rd August 1917 William was 18 years old.

In late 1917 and 1918, the Australian Government was having great difficulty in supplying the number of volunteers required to keep the five divisions of infantry and two divisions of light horse in the field. The daily casualty lists printed in the newspapers and the desperation of the Hughes’ government to introduce compulsory military service overseas were not sufficient to boost recruiting numbers. Those recruits that did present themselves, such as William Miller were quickly put into uniform and transported overseas. Within two months of enlisting, William was on a troop train to Sydney to embark on the Euripides on 31st October 1917. He landed in Portsmouth on Boxing Day 1917 and was sent to the depot at Sutton Veney.

By the 17th April William was finally taken on strength by the 15th Battalion which was at that time holding the line north of Albert engaging in what Monash described as peaceful penetration. During May the battalion moved south of the Somme around Hamel to prepare for a coming offensive. It is at this time that a rather unfortunate incident occurred.

On 18th June William was admitted to a field ambulance with a gunshot wound to the right foot. The following day he was charged with negligently injuring himself and was given 14 days confined to barracks. The records state that the injury was self inflicted but the term “negligently” implies that the wounding was not deliberate. The military authorities were well aware of the practice of men purposely wounding themselves to avoid front line service and therefore the punishment was quite severe. The light sentence given to William may be an indicator that this was indeed an accident; he was after all relatively new to front line activity. After 11 days in a depot behind the lines, William rejoined the unit.

William remained with his unit during the months of July and August 1918 when the 15th Battalion were involved in the battle of Hamel (4th July) and Amiens (8th August). These two actions by the Australian Corps under General Monash, which ended in decisive victories, foretold the end of the German spring offensive and were seen by most as “the beginning of the end.” In September, William was admitted to hospital at Rouen and then transferred to Reading War Hospital in England with trench fever. He was still in hospital when the war ended six weeks later.

The task of returning almost 300,000 Australian personnel to Australia after the war was a daunting task. There was an acute shortage of ships available and preference was given to men with five or four years overseas service (many of whom were Gallipoli veterans). By all measures, William should have been one of the last to be repatriated but perhaps due to his illness he embarked for home in January 1919. The day before his ship docked in Brisbane, William was admitted to the ship’s hospital with influenza. He was transferred to a shore hospital on 21st March and was finally discharged from the Army on 18th April 1919.

Whilst William had been overseas, his parents had moved to Northcote Street, East Brisbane. William applied for repatriation benefits in 1929.