Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Captain William Howard Oates (Service No:NX12504) served in the AIF from 1918, when he served as a Private (Service No:16672) with Camp Details Depot from 24 April to 24 December. On 13 June 1921 he enlisted in the AIF (Sapper; Service No:1032), and served with the Royal Australian Engineers at Royal Military College Duntroon, Australian Instructional Corps (Darwin Garrison) and 2nd Fortress Coy. On 1 April 1940, Captain Oates was seconded to the AIF ('in the field' at Chowder Bay NSW), and was in Adelaide attached to 2/3 Field Park Coy when he died on 28 July 1940. His father William Snr and Uncle Josiah served in WWI, and his brothers - Charles, Hugh and Sydney - served in WWII.

Bill was born in Boulder, Western Australia in 1900, eldest of six children of William Henry Oates (b1871 in Clunes, Victoria) and Eliza Fenton Simmons (b1873 in Armidale, New South Wales). William (a Miner and Labourer) and Eliza married in 1897 in Boulder, where they lived before moving in the early 1900s to Perth, where William was a Wood Merchant. The family returned to Boulder by 1915, and William was a Miner when he enlisted in the AIF in 1917. Following his Discharge, William and Eliza moved to Albany - William was incapacitated as a result of being gassed in France in WWI. William died in 1924.

Bill worked in Boulder as a Boiler Clearner in 1917, and was a Fitter and Turner in 1921 when he enlisted in the Army. In 1929, Bill was in Queanbeyan Hospital for an appendectomy and met Marie Evelyn Egan (b1907 in Cowra, New South Wales) - Marie was a Nurse at Queanbeyan Hospital. Bill and Marie married in Sydney in 1929, and had two children when Bill died in 1940. Marie died in 1991.