The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (NX45986) Sapper William Johnson Williams, 2/3rd Field Company, Royal Australian Engineers, Second World War

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. Hosted by Richard Cruise, the story for this day was on (NX45986) Sapper William Johnson Williams, 2/3rd Field Company, Royal Australian Engineers, Second World War.

NX45986 Sapper William Johnson Williams, 2/3rd Field Company, Royal Australian Engineers.
DOD 21 March 1945
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 19 July 2014

Today we remember and pay tribute to William Johnson Williams, who was killed on active service during the Second World War.

Born on 24 January 1907 in New Lambton, New South Wales, William Johnson Williams was the son of William senior and Elizabeth Williams. Before his enlistment in the Second Australian Imperial Force on 1 July 1940, Williams was a carpenter by trade. In August 1940 he embarked for overseas service in the Middle East. In January 1941 he was posted to the 2/3rd Field Company, Royal Australian Engineers, at that time based in Libya.

In March 1941 the German General Erwin Rommel, with his newly formed Afrika Korps, launched a major offensive into Cyrenaica that drove the British forces back across Libya and into Egypt. It was during this offensive that Williams was captured as a prisoner of war. He was travelling in a convoy on the night of 6 April when it was ambushed near Matuba, Libya.

Williams was evacuated to Italy with other Australian and British Commonwealth prisoners of war and sent to Camp 57 at Gruppignano in the country’s north. Conditions at Grupignano were particularly harsh. The camp commandant was vicious, and who treated the prisoners under his watch brutally. The camp was overcrowded, prisoners were underfed, and hygiene conditions were poor.

After Italy signed an armistice with the allies in September 1943, German troops took over the camp at Gruppignano and began evacuating prisoners to Germany. Williams was sent to Stalag VIII-A, then to Stalag VIII-B at Lamsdorf (now Lambinowice, Poland). Prisoners at Lamsdorf were sent on work detachments to various industrial sites, including paper mills, quarries, brickworks, steel mills, saw mills, iron foundries, gas works, railways, munitions factories, and coal mines.

Williams found himself on a series of heavy-duty work detachments, including working in a quarry and in a coal mine. Beginning work before dawn and finishing after dusk, coal miners might not see sunlight for weeks on end during the winter months. They also worked – sometimes in pools of water – without proper boots or helmets.

In January 1945, with the Russian advance closing in from the east, the Germans began evacuating prisoner-of-war camps that lay in its enemy’s path. In a series of forced marches, tens of thousands of prisoners were evacuated westward into Germany. The groups marched 20 to 40 kilometres a day, sometimes for up to several weeks. During the bitter cold of a European winter, prisoners marched through snow, sleet, and blizzards. Their clothes were constantly wet, non-essential possessions were abandoned, and there was little food.

Williams was one of many prisoners who died of disease and physical exhaustion. His fate was recorded by his close friend William Bosse, who wrote to William’s mother after the war. Six weeks into the march, Bosse recorded, Williams fell ill and for the following three weeks was carried on a horse-drawn cart. Bosse did all he could to help, scrounging what food and milk he could to feed his friend, but Williams took a turn for the worse and died during the night on 21 March 1945. He was 38.

Williams’ body was buried at Marienbad in Czechoslovakia and was later interred at the British Commonwealth War Graves cemetery in Prague.

Williams’ name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, along with the names of some 40,000 Australians who died in the Second World War.

This is but one of the many stories of honour, courage and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember William Johnson Williams, and all of those Australians who gave their lives for their nation.