It’s easy to pass by William Anderson’s grave without much reason to give it a second glance.
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Much like the man himself, the headstone he shares with wife Margaret in the Warrnambool Cemetery is modest and unassuming.
In fact, William was so unassuming in life that many were unaware he had served in both world wars and earnt a military medal and bar for bravery on the battlefield.
Among those in the dark about the extent of William’s military past was former workmate and Warrnambool RSL’s Doug Heazlewood.
“I knew Bill fairly well, when I started work I was the junior clerk at the city council in 1960 and ’61 when he was in the last few years of his working life,” he said.
“He was a very, very unassuming man and he never once mentioned in all the times I spoke to him his war service at all. He didn’t hide it, because he was in the RSL and had been president, but he didn’t make a thing of it.”
And in death, William still did not give anything much away; his grave, like many of the era, mentions nothing about his war service.
“You could pass this grave by and not understand that it was anybody to do with the military, let alone somebody who served overseas in World War I and served in World War II,” Mr Heazlewood said.
“In the ’70s and ’80s, families and the general public had the attitude that it wasn’t really done. It was like a sort of vacuum after Vietnam.
“It was only two years ago that I twigged there was a William Anderson MM and Bar who enlisted in Warrnambool and might have been the Bill I knew.”
William had signed up in 1915, aged 21, his papers listing him has a farmer from Grassmere. By April 1916 he arrived in Tel el Kabir, Egypt. His division was initially placed on the Suez Canal, before being shipped to the grim battlefields of France.
He fought in the Somme and survived the trenches at Pozieres as part of the 46th Battalion, where thousands of men were not so lucky.
He was later promoted to corporal, heading to England for further training, including the use of machine guns, before continuing his role on the Western Front.
William was awarded the military medal in 1918 his superiors noting that he used “great initiative and courage in directing the fighting patrols that were out whilst the objective was being consolidated”.
“He attacked and captured five Germans during his patrolling,” documents from the time state.
“The good work done by this NCO kept enemy machine gun fire down and enabled the position to be consolidated with very few casualties.”
He was awarded a Bar to the Military Medal later that year for “good work and devotion to duty” as a scout during the attack east of Hamel, carrying out reconnaissance under heavy fire “utterly regardless of his personal safety”.
William left France in February 1919 and arrived back in Melbourne in May.
What Mr Heazlewood didn’t realise was that Mr Anderson also enlisted in World War II.
He served on Australian soil, but the work he did remains a mystery.
William’s grandson, and current Warrnambool mayor, Robert Anderson remembers his grandfather well.
“He was a fine, upstanding man. He was about six foot two, he stood erect,” he said.
Mr Anderson agreed that, although he was always ready for a chat, the war was not something he ever talked about.
“He had a rocking chair in the lounge room and I would sit next to him and he would just talk,” Mr Anderson said.
“He was an absolute champion.
“When my father passed away at 52, he was a returned serviceman, he found it hard to come to grips that his son had died before he did. He was devastated.”
Mr Anderson said his grandfather worked at the saleyards, where Swan Reserve is now, before becoming caretaker of Warrnambool’s town hall.
“He was also a drum major of the Warrnambool Pipe Band and had a couple of his kids in there as well. As a matter of fact, when he died they made it the Anderson tartan at the Warrnambool bagpipes,” he said.
In August, the Anderson family, including William Anderson’s only surviving son, are holding a reunion in Warrnambool that marks the 100th year of him receiving the military medal and military bar.
One century on, his family couldn’t be prouder.
For the first time, William’s grave will be among those visited as part of the Warrnambool RSL and Warrnambool Family History Group’s Anzac Day cemetery tours that have become a Warrnambool Anzac Day tradition for many keen to learn more about local men and women at war.
The tour will this year focus on the stories of soldiers decorated for bravery in 1918, marking the centenary, including some memorials that have not been visited before.
Among them is a brave stretcher bearer who, despite losing an eye in the midst of battle, kept on with the job.
Those on the tour will also meet a former Australian rules star, and member of the winning Essendon side in the Victorian Football League’s first season in 1897.
Augustus Percival Officer defied the odds just to get on the battlefield in the First World War.
Officer was deemed too old to join the Australian army when he tried to sign up at age 40, but he was so determined to play his part that he shipped himself to England and enlisted there.
He turned out to be a valuable addition to the allies’ fighting force, claiming military honours for his feats of bravery.
The cemetery tours have run for a number of years, tracing the stories of decorated servicemen and women who are laid to rest, or at least have memorials, at the Warrnambool Cemetery.
The tour will meet at the Warrnambool Cemetery rotunda at 8.30am on Anzac Day, April 25.