SAPPER WILLIAM GREGORY
574 - 2nd Tunnelling Company
Born in 1879 at Eaglehawk, Victoria, William was the fourth of 12 children born to Thomas and Mary Jane (nee Howarth) Gregory between 1875 and 1896.
In 1898 at Eaglehawk, William married Elizabeth Jane Butcher Gee. Six children had been born to the couple when on 24 March 1910 Elizabeth died of consumption and exhaustion. Their youngest son Francis Wilfred had died in May of that year from pneumonia.
William next married Alice May Firth in 1912 at Eaglehawk and the couple added 3 more children to the family.
William signed the ‘Attestation Paper of Persons Enlisted for Service Abroad’ and the Oath to well and truly serve at Melbourne, Victoria on 24 Jul 1915. A medical examination on the same day found him to be fit for active service and recorded that he was 36 years 4 months of age, was 5ft 5¾in tall, weighed 11 stone 2 lbs, had a fresh complexion, blue eyes and light brown hair.
William gave his address as Footscray, Victoria, and stated that he had been a member of the Eaglehawk Rangers prior to enlistment.
He listed his trade as ‘driver’, and named his wife, Alice May Gregory of Footscray as his Next of Kin and allotted three fifths of his pay for the support of his wife and children.
On 13 August 1915 he was with ‘A’ Company, 20th Castlemaine Depot Battalion Camp and on 9 October 1915 he was transferred to the Miners Corps and appointed to No.2 Company, Miners Corps, at Casula, New South Wales.
At a civic parade in the Domain, Sydney on Saturday February 19, 1916, a large crowd of relations and friends of the departing Miners lined the four sides of the parade ground. Sixty police and 100 Garrison Military Police were on hand to keep the crowds within bounds. The scene was an inspiriting one. On the extreme right flank, facing the saluting base, were companies of the Rifle Club School; next came a detachment of the 4th King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, then the bands of the Light Horse, Liverpool Depot, and the Miners’ on the left, rank upon rank, the Miners’ Battalion.
The Corps boarded HMAT A38 Ulysses in Sydney, NSW on February 20 and sailed for the European theatre. Arriving in Melbourne, Victoria on February 22 the Miners camped at Broadmeadows for a stay of 7 days while further cargo was loaded.
Another parade was held at the Broadmeadows camp on March 1, the Miners’ Corps being inspected by the Governor-General, as Commander-in-Chief of the Commonwealth Military Forces.
Leaving Melbourne on March 1, Ulysses arrived at Fremantle, Western Australia on March 7 where a further 53 members were taken on board.
On Wednesday March 8, 1916 the whole force, with their band and equipment, paraded at Fremantle prior to leaving Victoria Quay at 9.30 o’clock.
The ship hit a reef when leaving Fremantle harbour, stripping the plates for 40 feet and, although there was a gap in the outside plate, the inner bilge plates were not punctured. The men on board nicknamed her ‘Useless’. The Miners were off-loaded and sent to the Blackboy Hill Camp where further training was conducted.
The Mining Corps comprised 1303 members at the time they embarked with a Headquarters of 40; No.1 Company – 390; No.2 Company – 380; No.3 Company – 392, and 101 members of the 1st Reinforcements.
Finally departing Fremantle on April 1, Ulysses voyaged via Suez, Port Said and Alexandria in Egypt. The Captain of the shipwas reluctantto take Ulysses out of the Suez Canal because he felt the weight of the ship made it impossible to manoeuvre in the situation of a submarine attack.
The troops were transhipped to HM Transport B.1 Ansonia, then on to Valetta, Malta before disembarking at Marseilles, France on May 5, 1916. As a unit they entrained at Marseilles on May 7 and detrained on May 11 at Hazebrouck.
A ‘Mining Corps’ did not fit in the British Expeditionary Force, and the Corps was disbanded and three Australian Tunnelling Companies were formed. The Technical Staff of the Corps Headquarters, plus some technically qualified men from the individual companies, was formed into the entirely new Australian Electrical and Mechanical Mining and Boring Company (AEMMBC), better known as the ‘Alphabetical Company’.
When the Mining Corps was disbanded, he was transferred to the 2nd Australian Tunnelling Company on 29 December 1916.
William enjoyed some leave from France between 10 and 20 September 1917.
Severely gassed on 6 March 1918, he was treated at the 58th Field Ambulances and 47th General Hospital at Le Treport before being transferred to England per H.S. Carisbrooke Castle and hospitalised in the Bath War Hospital on 14 March. On 28 March he was transferred to the 3rd Auxiliary Hospital, Dartford, where he recuperated until 13 May when he was discharged to No.3 Command Depot.
William apparently recovered sufficiently to take himself off on 4 days un-official leave from 27 June to 1 July 1918, which cost him 8 days pay.
On 16 July he marched out to the Overseas Training Brigade at Longbridge Deverill and proceeded overseas to France on 10 August 1918, rejoining his unit on 17 August.
William reported sick on 10 November 1918 and was transferred to England to the Brook War Hospital, Woolwich on 25 November. On 16 December he was transferred to the 3rd Auxiliary Hospital, Dartford, from where he was discharged to furlough on 19 December, to report to No.1 Command Depot on 2 January 1919.
He took an extra 5 days ‘un-official’ leave and did not report as directed until 6 January. This indiscretion costing him another 8 days pay.
William marched in to the No.2 Command Depot, Weymouth, on 9 January for repatriation and demobilisation.
2ATC relieved the 172nd Tunnelling Company, R.E. in May 1916 in the Neuville St Vaast/Vimyarea. They supported the Australian 5th Division at Fromelles and relieved the Canadians at the Bluff in January 1917. The Company moved to Nieuportin the same month, to construct subways for Operation Hush. Involved in enemy attack - Operation Strandfest - in this coastal sector in July 1917, recorded in the official histories as ‘The Affair at Nieuport Bains’. In April 1918, troops of the Company fought a large fire in Peronne.
Following the Armistice, members of the company were involved in the clearance of mines and delayed-action booby-traps and in the re-construction of civilian infrastructure.
William returned to Australia on the Karoa, leaving London on 28 March 1919 and disembarking at Melbourne on 8 May 1919.
He was discharged from the A.I.F. on 25 July 1919 in the 3rd Military District as medically unfit. He was entitled to wear the British War Medal (35193) and the Victory Medal (34938) which he received and signed for on 21 May 1924. His Military Documents were sent to the Department of Repatriation, Melbourne in 1931, presumably in support of a claim.
William and Alice separated and William married Jane Emily Booth. Alice went on to marry a man with the last name Coad. Alice May Coad, daughter of Charles and Elizabeth Emma (nee Denham) Firth died at Prahan, Victoria in 1970 at age 81 years.
William Gregory died in Victoria on 25 June 1957 aged 78. Jane Emily Gregory, parents unknown, died at Kew, Victoria in 1968 aged 84.
William’s younger brother, 1732 PRIVATE REGINALD GREGORY, born 1896, enlisted in January 1915, claiming to be 18 years and 10 months of age. His Attestation Paper records his Next of Kin as his father ‘William’ Gregory, of James Street Footscray, who signed on the bottom of the Paper “I consent to my son brother enlisting in the Expeditionary Force”.
Reginald embarked with the 14th Battalion and was killed in action in France on 10 August 1916.
His personal effects were signed for by his father Thomas Gregory in August 1917 and a pension to his mother, Mary Jane Gregory of Raglan Street, South Melbourne, was granted, also in August 1917.
A Press Notice was published in February 1920 seeking Reginalds’ Next of Kin, late of Raglan, Street, South Melbourne.
Reginalds’ war memorabilia of medals and plaques were forward to Mr. Gregory of Clancy Street, Boulder, Western Australia in March 1922.
1732 Private Reginald Gregory, 14th Battalion, is buried in the Boulonge Eastern Cemetery, France.
Sapper William Gregory 574 and Reginald Gregory 1732 were my great great Uncles. In 2011 my husband and I on a trip to Europe did a side trip to Boulogne to visit the cemetery where Reginald was buried. I left a poppy which I took with me on our trip by his monument. Rhonda Walsh
© Donna Baldey 2009/2014
with the assistance of Rhonda Walsh, great granddaughter of Francis Gregory.