By Peter Hartcher

Copyright brisbanetimes

The first Australian military personnel member to die in World War I wasn’t killed in Gallipoli or Europe or anywhere nearby.

Able Seaman Billy Williams died on the island of New Britain in what is today Papua New Guinea. At the time, it was a German colony. When war was declared, Australia’s first and most urgent mission was to force the Germans out of German New Guinea. Why? So that it couldn’t be used by Kaiser Wilhelm’s powerful East Asia Squadron as a base to attack Australia or other parts of the British Empire.

Billy, a 28-year-old naval reservist from Melbourne, was part of an advance party with the specific task of capturing a German wireless station on the island. They succeeded, but at the cost of Billy’s life and the lives of five of his comrades. The action was called the Battle of Bita Paka.

“Australians think of World War I, and they think of Gallipoli, the Western Front, the Light Horse,” says Peter Dean, a military historian and newly appointed chair of military studies at the Australian War College.