Can you help find William?

James William Connell was born in 1881 in Hotham (now called North Melbourne), in Victoria, the son of James William Connell and Margaret Henderson. He was known throughout his life as William James or simply William. His father was from Midlothian Scotland and his mother was born in Victoria. In 1888, they were all living in North Carlton at 311 Canning street, the home of William’s maternal grandmother.

Children of James and Margaret:

1888 was a year of great sadness and change for the Connell family. William was just seven and his mother, having given birth to Maggie, died of renal failure and Henry, aged 4, died later that year. This left William’s father to raise all the young children. How did they manage? We know that they went to NSW at some stage, as Janet died in 1897 at Wickham, NSW, aged 18.

This may have been an employment move, as Newcastle and the mining areas were booming. William went on to work as a labourer. William’s father died in 1912 in Rockdale, Sydney. William and his sister Maggie remained in NSW and they lived together at Brunda, Ocean Street, Woollahra, Sydney. Maggie was listed as his next of kin when he enlisted – a reflection of their close bond and shared home before he left for war. Maggie never married. She died at Leura in 1972, aged 87.

William enlisted on 24 June 1915, at Liverpool, New South Wales. At 33 years old, he was older than many of his fellow recruits, but like so many, he was likely driven by duty and adventure far from home. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 9th Reinforcements, and embarked from Sydney on 30 September 1915 aboard HMATArgyllshire. William arrived at Port Said in Egypt in the first week of January 1916 and was moved to the training camp at Tel-el-Kebir, which was about 110 km northeast of Cairo.

The 40,000 men in the camp were comprised of Gallipoli veterans and the thousands of reinforcements arriving regularly from Australia. With the ‘doubling of the AIF’ as it expanded from two infantry divisions to five, major reorganisations were underway. The 53rd Battalion was formed on 16 February 1916 and was made up of Gallipoli veterans from the 1st Battalion and the new recruits from Australia and William was reassigned here. The Gallipoli soldiers in the 53rd were not slow in pointing out to whoever would listen that they were the “Dinkums” and the new recruits were the “War Babies”.

Source: AWM4 23/70/1, 53rd Battalion War Diaries, Feb-July 1916, page 3

Training for all continued. In March they were sent to Ferry Post, on foot, a trip of about 60 km that took three days. It was a significant challenge, walking over the soft sand in the 38°C heat with each man carrying their own possessions and 120 rounds of ammunition. Many of the men suffered heat stroke.

Once there, they remained at Ferry Post guarding the Suez Canal from any potential threats posed by the Ottoman Army until 16 June when they began the move to the Western Front. 32 officers and 958 soldiers of the 53rd left Alexandria on 19 June on the troopship HMT Royal George, bound for Marseilles, France to become part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front. They arrived in Marseilles on 28 June and immediately entrained for a 62-hour journey north to Hazebrouck before finally marching into the camp at nearby Thiennes in northern France. During their trip it was noted that their “reputation had evidently preceded them”, as they were well received by the French at the towns all along the route.

Source: AWM4 23/70/2 53rd Battalion War Diaries February - June 1916, p. 4

This area near Fleurbaix was known as the “Nursery Sector” – a supposedly relatively quiet area where inexperienced Allied troops could learn the harsh realities of Western Front trench warfare against the Germans. But the quiet times and the training period did not last long.

On 10 July, the 53rd entered trenches for the first time. Though nominally in a "quiet sector", the front near Fleurbaix was anything but calm. Rain flooded the communication trenches, artillery fire harassed supply lines, and the soldiers dug in amid the mud and barbed wire of No-Man’s-Land.

From 8 to 16 July, the 53rd rotated between billets and the line. The men knew something was coming. They rehearsed attacks in replica trench systems, inspected bayonets, and watched as huge guns rolled into place behind the lines. Then on 16 July, they moved up for an attack—only to have it postponed due to weather.

The delay proved torturous. Private James Charles "Jim" Granger, 4784, 53rd Battalion, a young Dorrigo soldier, described the tension leading up to the battle:

As below, the 14th Brigade War Diary notes that the artillery had been successful and “very few living Germans were found in the first and second line trenches”, but within the first 20 minutes the 53rd lost ALL the company commanders, ALL their seconds in command and six junior officers.

Source: AWM C E W Bean, The AIF in France, Vol 3, Chapter XII, pg 369

According to witness statements, William was killed in this fateful initial rush:

And in a later statement:

Further confirmation came from another comrade:

Of the 990 men who had left Alexandria just weeks before, the initial count at roll call was 36 killed, 353 wounded and 236 missing:

To get some perspective of the battle, when Charles Bean, Australia’s official war historian, attended the battlefield two and half years later, he observed a large quantity of bones, torn uniforms and Australian kit still on the battlefield. The final impact of the battle on the 53rd was 245 soldiers were killed or died from their wounds and, of this, 190 were not able to be identified.

When the guns finally fell silent after the failed attack at Fromelles, the full horror of the battle was revealed. The 53rd Battalion alone lost nearly half its men killed, wounded, or missing. William was initially listed as missing in action and for weeks his family clung to hope. His sister Maggie, waiting at their home in Woollahra, Sydney, would have checked every casualty list for his name. As Red Cross enquiries gathered witness reports, confirmation eventually reached her that William had been killed on 19 July 1916. With their close relationship, Maggie was the beneficiary in William’s will.

Despite multiple eye-witness statements describing his death in No Man’s Land, not far from the Australian lines, William’s body was never recovered. The battlefield remained under German control for the remainder of the war, and many who fell that night were buried where they lay or interred later in mass graves. In the years after the war, William’s eldest sister, Christina, who was living in Melbourne, applied to receive his war medals on behalf of their family. In her declaration, she explained that their parents had long since passed away and that William’s sister Janet and only brother had died in childhood, leaving Christina and his sister Maggie to carry forward his memory.

Today, William is commemorated on Panel 7 at the VC Corner Cemetery Memorial in Fromelles, France, alongside over 1,200 Australian soldiers who died in the battle with no known grave. His name is also recorded on the Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour in Canberra. For his family, there was no grave to visit and no final resting place to mourn. Like so many of the men lost that night, William remains one of the missing.