William BENTON

BENTON, William

Service Number: 3775
Enlisted: 13 November 1915
Last Rank: Private
Last Unit: 24th Infantry Battalion
Born: Newcastle, Straffordshire, England, October 1890
Home Town: Richmond (V), Yarra, Victoria
Schooling: Boarding School, England
Occupation: Upholsterer
Died: Killed in Action, France, 5 August 1916
Cemetery: London Cemetery and Extension, Longueval
Memorials: Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour
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World War 1 Service

13 Nov 1915: Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 3775, 24th Infantry Battalion
8 Feb 1916: Involvement Private, 3775, 24th Infantry Battalion, Battle for Pozières , --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '14' embarkation_place: Melbourne embarkation_ship: HMAT Warilda embarkation_ship_number: A69 public_note: ''
8 Feb 1916: Embarked Private, 3775, 24th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Warilda, Melbourne

Help us honour William Benton's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.

Biography contributed by Evan Evans

From AWM

History / Summary

3775 Private William Benton was born in England and immigrated to Australia when he was 21. He was married to Eunice Edna and had two children, Eunice and Jack when he enlisted in the AIF on 13 December 1915. Benton embarked for overseas service with the 9th reinforcements of 24 Battalion on 8 February 1916 aboard HMAT Warilda from Melbourne. He was only briefly in Egypt before embarking for France on 27 March 1916.

Benton went missing on 5 August 1916 at Pozieres. That morning he was in the support lines at Pozieres Ridge, OG1 (Old German lines 1) and was wounded in the head by a shell splinter which cracked his helmet. His wound was dressed and he began to make his way back to a Dressing Station with some other wounded men. One eyewitness stated it was about 2 miles (a little over 3 kilometres) away but Benton never made it and was never seen nor heard from again. There was very heavy shelling from the Germans and it was believed he had been killed making his way behind the lines. It was over a year before Benton was officially listed as killed in action by a court of enquiry in October 1917.

As he had no known grave, his name was listed on the Villers Bretonneux Memorial. His body was finally located in 1957, 300 yards (about 275 metres) north of Pozieres and these items; a filigree brooch he bought for his daughter, an Armentieres brooch, a piece of leather, British button, silver vesta (matchstick) case, buckle and his identity disc, were found with his remains. His damaged identity disc was still sufficiently legible to identify his body. He was reburied at the London Cemetery Extension, Longueval, France. The items were returned to his widow, who had remarried, in 1957.

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Biography contributed by Evan Evans

From François Berthout

Pte 3775 William Benton,
24th Australian Infantry Battalion,
6th Brigade, 2nd Australian Division,

Over a hundred years ago, in the Somme, in the fields of poppies and roses, millions of men fought and fell who served their country beyond bravery, young men who gave their today and their lives for our tomorrow, so that we can live in the peace for which they paid the supreme sacifice and in which they rest today under the rows of their graves in the white and serene cities that are the cemeteries in which they still stand proudly and in which with the greatest care, with gratitude and respect we will honor their memory and we will bring their names, their stories to life so that they will never be forgotten.

Today, it is with the deepest gratitude, with respect that I would like to honor the memory of one of these young men, one of my boys of the Somme who, for Australia and France, for peace, gave his life.I would like to pay a very respectful tribute to Private number 3775 William Benton who fought in the 24th Australian Infantry Battalion, 6th Brigade, 2nd Australian Division, and who was killed in action 105 years ago, on August 5, 1916 at the age of 26 on the Somme front.

William Benton was born in October 1890 in Newcastle-Under-Lyme, Straffordshire, England, and was the son of Joseph Benton and Susan Benton (née Crowther). William was educated in England, at Boarding School and at the age of 21, immigrated to Australia where he met and married Eunice Edna Benton, of 427 Station Street, North Carlton, Victoria, had a daughter, Eunice Miriam then a son, Jack William and lived at 25 Wellington Street, South Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria, where William worked as an upholsterer.

William enlisted at the age of 25 on December 13, 1915 in Melbourne, Victoria, in the 24th Australian Infantry Battalion, 9th Reinforcement and after a two month training period at Broadmeadows Camp, Victoria, he embarked with his unit from Melbourne, on board HMAT A69 Warilda on February 8, 1916 and sailed for Egypt.

On March 21, 1916 William arrived in Egypt and was disembarked in Alexandria for a very short period then embarked with his battalion and proceeded overseas for France where he was disembarked in Marseilles on March 27 but his war was very short.

On May 12, 1916, William was taken on strength at L'Hallobeau then fought at Armentieres, a relatively calm sector of the front before being sent to Erquinghem in June and the following month,on July 27 was sent with his battalion to the Somme , in Pozieres which was the first major engagement of the AIF on the Somme front during which 23,000 Australian soldiers were killed and wounded and unfortunately, it is in Pozieres, a month later, on August 5, 1916 that William met his fate.

In the morning of August 5, 1916,William was in the support lines at Pozieres Ridge, OG1 (Old German lines 1) and was wounded in the head by a shell splinter which cracked his helmet. His wound was dressed and he began to make his way back to a Dressing Station with some other wounded men. One eyewitness stated it was about 2 miles (a little over 3 kilometres) away but Benton never made it and was never seen nor heard from again. There was very heavy shelling from the Germans and it was believed he had been killed making his way behind the lines. It was over a year before Benton was officially listed as killed in action by a court of enquiry on October 18, 1917.

As he had no known grave, his name was listed on the Villers Bretonneux Memorial,Somme. His body was finally located in 1957, 300 yards (about 275 metres) north of Pozieres and these items; a filigree brooch he bought for his daughter, an Armentieres brooch, a piece of leather, British button, silver vesta (matchstick) case, buckle and his identity disc, were found with his remains. His damaged identity disc was still sufficiently legible to identify his body.The items were returned to his widow, who had remarried, in 1957.

After his body was found in 1957, William Benton was buried in the London Cemetery And Extension, Longueval, Somme, where he now rests in peace alongside his friends, comrades and brothers in arms and his grave bears the following inscription "Greater love hath no man than this that he lay down his life".
William, on the fields of the Somme, alongside your brothers in arms you fought with dedication, bravery and loyalty for your country, for Australia and for France, two countries whose friendship was born in the mud trenches and who today are united with respect in front of you in the memory of a whole generation of men who here fought and fell together on the battlefields who saw the courage and determination of young heroes like you who, for peace, gave their lives in the poppy fields on which their white graves stand today, their last resting places between which grow the roses and the eternal flowers of Remembrance that remind us of what so many young men as you did for us and to whom we will be forever grateful and today it is from the bottom of my heart, with respect and love that I would like to say thank you,for the peace and freedom in which we live and for which so many lives were taken too early in the steel barbed wire lines of Pozieres, Amiens and Villers-Bretonneux, towns in which the names and the courage of all the Australian soldiers who fought and gave their lives in the Somme will be forever honored with our highest respect under these few words "Never forget Australia".In the trenches and on the battlefields, they fought side by side with gallantry, with courage and determination, with perseverance, united in an indestructible mateship which was stronger than the horrors of the war which they passed through, a comradery which was their strength and which, in the worst moments, gave them the courage to move forward and to keep their heads high under the sinister howls of the enemy artillery which rained down on their young but strong shoulders, tons of shells, they carried with them the weight of the war which they dragged at every step under their muddy boots, a mud in which they fought relentlessly and which soon mingled with the blood of their friends who stood by their side and who fell under the bullets, under the gas, under the grenades.In the face of this hell on earth, they stood, determined to do their duty and courageously held their lines under storms of fire and steel that turned meadows, once peaceful hills into fields of death, stinking quagmires upon which , day and night fell thousands of men in courageous attacks under machine gun fire which ended in horrible bloodbaths in which friends and enemies were united in death, their rifles and bayonets still in hand.Brave of the bravest, they fought like lions, they moved forward under fire knowing that many of them would never return home but all took a step forward and climbed the wooden ladders to face the death that awaited them and made proud their country and their loved ones who received the terrible news from the front and the telegrams saying that their sons, their husbands, their men fell by doing their duty and leaving broken families, homes in which happiness was destroyed, families to whom I would like to say today that their men, their sons will never be forgotten and that as long as I live, I will watch over them so that their names, their stories will never be forgotten, their sons have become ours, they will be forever loved and remembered, they will be forever my heroes, my boys of the Somme and I would give my life so that theirs will remain eternal and strong as they were in life and in the trenches, they will never be forgotten.Thank you so much William,for everything. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember him,we will remember them.

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