WILLIAMS, Arthur James

Arthur James Williams was born c Dec 1898 at Menzies, Western Australia.  He was the son of Percy James and Mary Ellen Williams. When he enlisted at Brunswick, Victoria on 13 February 1917 he stated that he was a salesman and that his permanent address was 112 Grey Street, East Melbourne.  He named as his next of kin his father who was already on active service with the AIF.  He also admitted that he had previously been rejected as unfit for His Majesty’s Service on the grounds that he was under height.  He was only 5ft 2ins.  He gave his age as 18 years and 2 months and his aunt, Annie Llewelyn, was the one who signed the consent form for him to enlist, his father being overseas and his mother dead.  His mother had died eighteen months earlier at the Grey Street address, which at the time was a boarding house.
He was appointed to the 3rd Divisional Signal Company, 13th Reinforcements as a sapper and sent to the Signal School at Seymour for training. He embarked on 4 August 1917 aboard HMAT Themistocles and disembarked at Glasgow on 2 October 1917.  After a few months training at 1 and 3 Camp Details, Parkhouse, he proceeded overseas to France on 23 January 1918 and joined the 3rd Divisional Signals Company.  He was in hospital sick for a week the following March.  On 5 July 1919 he was detached to Graves Registration Services.  He returned to Australia 31 August 1920, with wife, at his own request for urgent family reasons. It appears that a letter he had written to his father had been returned to him endorsed ‘deceased’.  This was the first he knew of his father’s death, which had taken place at Beria, Western Australia. He arrived on 21 October 1920, and was discharged 3 January 1921 medically unfit, his disability given as myocardia.
In 1950 Arthur received a letter from Base Records in reply to his request for a replacement copy of his discharge papers which he had lost.  The original papers had been handed in and were returned to him along with his remittance for 2/6.  His address at this time was 10 Kirkwood Drive, Hartwell, Victoria.  He died 18 March 1989.