The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (7) Lance Corporal William Leslie Anderson, 10th ALTMB, First 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 Chris Widenbar, the story for this day was on (7) Lance Corporal William Leslie Anderson, 10th ALTMB, First World War.

7 Lance Corporal William Leslie Anderson, 10th ALTMB
KIA 10 May 1917
Story delivered on 27 March 2018

Today we remember and pay tribute to Lance Corporal William Leslie Anderson.

William Anderson was born in 1891 to Robert and Edith Anderson of Nhill, Victoria. William’s mother died suddenly and unexpectedly the year he was born, and the following year William’s father married his deceased wife’s sister. They went on to have a large family.

William attended the Boyeo State School in Nhill, and then worked as a labourer in the district. He was a quiet man, who reportedly “made a large circle of friends on account of his quiet and unassuming disposition and his straightforwardness”.

William Anderson enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in March 1916. He underwent a period of training in Australia before leaving for active service overseas with the 39th Battalion. He first went to England, and while training on Salisbury Plain, transferred to the 10th Australian Light Trench Mortar Battery. After further training in his new role and a promotion to lance corporal, Anderson was sent to France to fight on the Western Front in late 1916.

Anderson spent the bitterly cold winter of 1916 -17 in the trenches, and in early 1917 was forced to spend time in hospital with mumps. Anderson was noted to be “very keen on his work and capable, and his officers always felt that they could rely on him to carry out any task assigned to him”.

The 10th Light Trench Mortar Battery spent much of the early part of 1917 in Belgium near the town of Ploegsteert. On 10 May, Lance Corporal Anderson was in his dug-out about 300 metres behind the front line, discussing his afternoon’s work with his sergeant. As they talked, a German shell landed about 20 feet from the open door of the dugout, blowing it in, and killing Anderson and his sergeant. A third man in the back of the dugout was practically unharmed, although he suffered serious shock from the blast.

Lance Corporal William Anderson was buried in the Strand Military Cemetery in Ploegsteert Wood, by an army chaplain who had previously been an Anglican minister in Nhill. Robert and Harriet Anderson in Nhill received letters from their son’s comrades in Belgium, one of which said:
He was very popular, and all the members of the unit feel his loss very much. His death coming so suddenly will make his loss hard to bear, but you will have some consolation in knowing that his death was so sudden that he did not suffer, and that his face and body were not badly mutilated.
Chaplain Best wrote, “We have lost a good friend, a fine soldier, and a real man.”

William Anderson was 26 years old.

His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among almost 62,000 Australians who died while serving in the First World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Lance Corporal William Leslie Anderson, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Meleah Hampton
Historian, Military History Section