The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (NX37472) Gunner William John Williamson, 2/15th Field Regiment, 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 Troy Clayton, the story for this day was on (NX37472) Gunner William John Williamson, 2/15th Field Regiment, Second World War.

NX37472 Gunner William John Williamson, 2/15th Field Regiment
DOD 22 August 1943
Story delivered 8 June 2018


Today we remember and pay tribute to Gunner William John Williamson.

Known to friends and family as “Bill”, William Williamson was born on 28 July 1920, at Nuntherungie Station, in the White Cliffs district of New South Wales, the youngest son of Bernard Henry and Mary Cawker Williamson.

After attending Orange High School, Williamson worked with his father at Abbotsford Station, near Ivanhoe.

On 23 of June 1941, a month before his 21st birthday, Williamson travelled to Paddington to enlist in the 2nd Australian Imperial Force. He joined the 1st Field Training Regiment in Sydney in July, and had his final leave in October, during which he was given a well-attended public farewell at the Ivanhoe Memorial Hall.

On 10 January 1942, Gunner Williamson sailed from Sydney with reinforcements for the 2/15th Field Regiment, bound for Singapore.

By the start of January, the Japanese had advanced through Thailand and most of Malaya. The regiment’s gunner had been in almost constant action, providing artillery support for the infantry withdrawal along the Malayan Peninsula towards Singapore.

Towards the end of the month, the last of the Allied troops had crossed the causeway and reached Singapore. Among some of the last to cross were troops from the 2/15th, who formed the last Allied artillery units in action on the peninsula.

Having crossed the causeway, which was subsequently blown, the regiment was deployed to the western area in support of the 8th Division’s 22nd Brigade.

The Japanese attack on Singapore began at 10.30 pm on 8 February, when two Japanese divisions crossed the Johore Strait and attacked along the 22nd Brigade’s front. The brigade and the 2/15th inflicted heavy casualties on the attackers, and the artillery sank some barges. But with its communications cut, heavily outnumbered, and the Japanese infiltrating between positions, the brigade and the 2/15th withdrew. The regiment continued to move back towards Singapore and provide artillery support when needed.

By 13 February the battle for Singapore Island was all but over and British forces surrendered two days later

Initially imprisoned in the sprawling Changi prisoner-of-war camp, it was not long before members of the 2/15th were allocated to external work parties. The first parties were dispatched around Singapore and southern Malaya, but Williamson became part of “F Force”, one of the last labour forces to leave Changi in mid-April 1943.

Many of the men of F Force were unwell even before they left Singapore. Isolated in far up-country Thailand, remote from food and medical supplies, and drenched by monsoonal rains, almost a third of the Australians and two-thirds of the British prisoners would die.

F Force’s hardships began when they were packed into suffocating metal railway trucks with little food and water. On reaching Ban Pong in Thailand, F Force was then forced to march over 300 kilometres to camps near the border with Burma. Arriving up country in early May, F force was spread across half a dozen camps progressing toward the Burma border.

On 22 August 1943, William Williamson died of beri beri.

He was 23 years old.

He was buried nearby, but his body was later transferred to Thanbyuzayat War Cemetary in Myanmar.

It took some time for news to reach the Williamson family in Australia, who received confirmation that William was a prisoner of war barely a week after his death. In September, they received a card from him, and heard via shortwave from Singapore that he was well and that Private Charlie Stead, also from Ivanhoe, was with him.

It wasn’t until April 1945 that Williamson’s death was finally confirmed.

On the anniversary of his death in 1947, the Williamson family had the following lines included in the local newspaper:

Splendid he passed the great surrender made,
Into the light that never more shall fade

In 1948 a memorial service was held in his honour at the Presbyterian church in Ivanhoe. The Williamson family unveiled an inscribed lectern dedicated to Williams’s memory in front of a large crowd, including returned soldiers that had been his friends.

His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, among some 40,000 Australians who died while serving in the Second World War.
This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Gunner William John Williamson, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Duncan Beard
Editor, Military History Section