The first Australian casualties of the Great War were members of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (A.N & M.E.F.). They were Able Seaman W G V Williams, a member of the 1st Battalion A.N & M.E.F and Captain B Pockley, a medical officer with the Australian Army Medical Corps.
Photo: Australian Naval & Military Expeditionary Force Memorial
Bitapaka War Cemetery [Greg Knight]
The A.N & M.E.F. was formed after a request to Australia from the British Government on 6th August to occupy the German colonies in the South Pacific and secure the German wireless stations to prevent transmission to the German Pacific naval squadron.
The A.N & M.E.F, under the command of Colonel William Holmes, departed Sydney aboard the P & O Liner Berrima. The force consisted of one battalion of infantry, which included militia men from the Scottish Rifles, plus 500 naval reservists and ex-sailors who served as infantry. The Berrima proceeded to Palm Island, off the coast from Townsville to rendezvous with the New Zealand force, escorted by the cruisers HMAS Australia and HMAS Melbourne.
The A.N & M.E.F, then sailed on to capture Rabual. Able Seaman Williams and Captain Pockley died on the 11th September 1914 from wounds sustained during this action and died aboard HMAT Berrima.
Within three months Colonel Holmes’s forces had garrisoned the remainder of Germany’s Pacific possessions south of the Equator, stretching from northeast mainland New Guinea to the Admiralty Islands, New Ireland, Bougainville, and Nauru.
Details of the campaign are contained in The Official History of Australia in the War1914-1918 – Volume X: The Australians at Rabaul. The Capture and Administration of the German Possessions in the Southern Pacific. All volumes of The Official History are available on line at the Australian War Memorial website. Click here to read Volume X.
If you are interested in researching someone who served in the A.N & M.E.F the Australian War Memorial website also contains the Embarkation Rolls of the A.N & M.E.F and Service Records of personnel can be accessed through the National Archives of Australia.
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FFFAIF Member Greg Knight in his DIGGER article, The WW1 Australian Grave in the Old German Cemetery, Madang – Papua New Guinea, recalls his findings during a visit to Papua New Guinea:
Whilst walking through the Old German Cemetery in Madang (known as Friedrich Wilhemshafen in 1914) in Papua New Guinea in August 2003, my wife Margaret and I came across the lone grave of a WW1 Digger, dated 24 January 1915.
These days Madang and its beautiful coastline and islands, is a Mecca for international divers and the welcome destination for the budding Shaggy Ridge Trek. Back in 1914 it was the mainland centre for the German Lutheran Church and its missionaries, the German New Guinea Company and a haven for malaria and other then untreatable tropical diseases. Many of the Germans died from Malaria and an ornate cemetery developed on the outskirts of the small town.
Today, due to Madang’s post WWII growth, the cemetery lies next to the exotic Madang Markets and only a short walk from the centre of the Provincial Township, sandwiched in between Kudam, Badaten and Nanulon Streets. As the ground is coral and the water table is very high, the cemetery was artificially elevated, which meant the ground was unstable and subject to years of erosion. Also, due to allied bombing during WW2, many of the graves and headstones have been upset and upturned. Today the area is used as a local meeting area and subject to graffiti and other acts of vandalism.
All the other identifiable graves in this cemetery are German except the one of Private Frederick Golden Howes, Service Number 148 – 3 Bn, Australian Naval & Military Expeditionary Force. A brass Commonwealth War Graves plaque is bolted to the cement plinth. This lone Australian grave had me puzzled – why was it there?
On our return to Sydney I began to unearth the story…………………………….
If you would like to read the conclusion to Greg’s story past copies of DIGGER are available to members of the Families and Friends of the First AIF. Annual membership is inexpensive and includes quarterly copies of DIGGER delivered to your door. Membership is $A40 p.a. For more details visit our Join Us page
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Another interesting snippet: …
Elena Govor, in her book Russian Anzacs in Australian History, writes that the cook aboard the HMAT Berrima was Julian Szablowsky. Julian was one of several Russians who served in the A.N & M.E.F. Szablowsky had worked as a ship’s cook on Australian ships before the war, and was the first Russian to enlist and serve outside Australia.