Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Son of Thomas Herbert and Blanche Stella Arrowsmith, of North Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia.

Private William Arrowsmith was a French Polisher. He enlisted in June 1940, served in Australia with 2/21st Infantry Battalion. He embarked for overseas 17 January 1942, and reported missing 2 February 1942. Believed killed in action at Laha.

The 2/21st Battalion was formed at Trawool, near Seymour in central Victoria in August 1940 and later, with a number of additional troops from other attachments, formed part of “Gull Force”. The force consisted of 1131 men, mostly Victorians.

Gull Force was sent to Ambon to defend the strategic island's harbour and air strip. In January 1942 an overwhelmingly larger Japanese force of approximately 20,000 men landed on the Island. Some members of Gull Force were sent to defend the air strip at Laha on the western side of the bay and after a series of short but fierce battles, fighting on Ambon Island ceased on 2 February 1942. During this conflict, 47 men were killed in action, 11 escaped, 5 managed to join the rest of the force on the other side of the Island, and 229 were massacred after surrendering.

During the conflict on the other side of the Island, 7 members of Gull Force were killed in action, 804 became Prisoners of War. Of that number 267 were subsequently taken to the Chinese Island of Hainan, where 86 died as prisoners.
Investigations after the war determined it was impossible to positively identify many of the remains found at Laha and these ‘war dead’ were declared “became missing and for Official Purposes Presumed to be Dead, 20 February 1942”. The remains which were found were reinterred in the Ambon War Cemetery.