BRITAIN AT WAR LEFT:
Another photograph showing men of the 53rd Battalion in a trench in their front line a few minutes before the launching of the attack at Fromelles. For the AIF this was to be its baptism on the Western Front, for although other Australian divisions had been sent to the Somme they had not yet been committed. (Courtesy of the Australian War Memorial)
have seven sisters and one brother. Little information about William’s early adult years is known, other than he worked in Melbourne as a painter for five years before travelling through New South Wales and Queensland, working on farms and droving.
In the summer of 1915, Howard set out to join the Australian Army, but, at the age of forty-six, he was above the upper
Ten days later Clingan sent what is believed to have been his last letter: “Just a line to let you know that I am O.K. We have shifted again nearer the firing. We are in houses in a village which presents a very dilapidated appearance. Only a few have windows intact and many have holes in the roof, slates off etc. We moved into this place late at night with guns going off and flares lighting up the trenches in front. We arrived alright, no one being hurt … along the road we passed one of our big guns … You could [see] the flash and feel the concussion …”
Along with so many others, after eleven hours of preliminary bombardment Private Alexander Clingan went “over the top” at Fromelles at about 06.00 hours on the morning of 19 July 1916. By the end of the day he was dead. Today, his remains lie in Grave E.8 of Plot III at Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery.
Another of the men who has been identified is Private William John Howard, 31st Battalion Australian Infantry. It was a result which had been achieved through DNA matches and the fact that his height had been in excess of six feet. Not only is Howard the oldest of the soldiers from the mass graves to have been identified to date, his case is unusual in that this was not the name under which he served.
William John Howard was born in Yambuk, Victoria, on 11 December 1868. He was the first son of John and Sarah Howard to survive infancy, though he would eventually
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age limit of forty-five. Undeterred Howard enlisted at Brisbane on 15 July 1915, as 44-year-old Private 258 John Morley. He would go on to train, embark, fight and die within a period of one year and five days. William Howard was reburied in Grave E.3 of Plot IV at Fromelles.
An examination of the most recent list of the named soldiers reburied at Fromelles provides some interesting information and figures. Not least of these is the fact that the average age of these men was 24. Whilst Howard appears to be the eldest, the youngest was just 17.
Like Howard, Private 2055 Colin Meyers of the 31st Battalion Australian Infantry had served under an alias – in this case Private Cecil Morgan. We can only speculate as to why this young man had felt the need to enlist under a different name – though the most likely reasons were
RIGHT:
A portrait of Corporal 755 Frank Steed, 30th Battalion Australian Infantry. Corporal Steed was 33-years-old when he died on 20 July 1916, at the Battle of Fromelles. His body, one of the 250 found in the mass graves, has been identified and laid to rest in Grave C10, Plot II. (Courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission)
AUGUST 2010
either the fact that he was underage or that he felt compelled to anglicize his surname.
A native of Goulburn, New South Wales, Meyers had embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board the troopship HMAT Ballarat on 18 February 1916. He arrived at Marseilles, France, on 23 June 1916. Barely four weeks later he was dead.
Initially reported to his parents as “wounded in action on 19 July 1916”, by 25 August 1916, this had changed. Meyers was now being listed as “Wounded and Missing”. As the months passed, no further news was forthcoming.
Then, on 24 February 1917, the ANZAC Section, 3rd Echelon, General Headquarters, British Expeditionary Force, acknowledged that the 17-year-old’s identification disc had been received from Germany via the Red Cross. This was followed soon after by a few of his personal effects, which in turn were returned to his next-of-kin, along with the news that his name had appeared on a German Army Death List on 4 November 1916.
For some nine decades, Meyers’ remains lay forgotten, buried in a mass grave on French soil. Soon, however, a standard Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone bearing his name will be erected at Grave B7 in Plot I at Fromelles.
Of those identified so far, seventy-seven were, like Meyers, Private soldiers. Of the remaining other ranks, two were Lance Corporals, eight were Corporals, one a Lance Sergeant and two were Sergeants. Of the officers named, two were Second Lieutenants, four Lieutenants, one a Major and, as already mentioned, one a Lieutenant Colonel.
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