William Sandford EVENDEN
19 June 1897 – 12 October 1917
Regimental number 32643
William EVENDEN, or Bill as he was known, was clearly keen to join up and serve with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. His formal enlistment occurred on 28 July 1916, but his preceding medical examination was on 20 June, exactly one day after he turned 19. Perhaps not surprisingly, he declared his age to be 20.
He was born in Kumara, roughly 30 kilometres south of Greymouth on the West Coast of the South Island, and famous as the hometown of Liberal Premier Richard Seddon. Bill was the second child of Walter Henry Evenden, a miner all his life, and Maria Annie née Jamieson. He had a sister, Frances, who was born two years earlier, in 1895. His primary education was at the public school in Kumara and for his secondary schooling he attended the Hokitika District High School.
Bill passed the matriculation and junior civil service examinations while still living on the West Coast, but he continued his studies after gaining an appointment with the Department of Labour in Wellington, where he passed the senior civil service examination.[1] His career had begun well.
In what was no doubt seen as an interlude, Bill spent time after his Army service began in the military camps in Trentham and Featherston, spending 10 days in hospital at the first being treated for tonsillitis and then 28 days at the second with measles. Fit once more, Bill left New Zealand with the 19th Reinforcements on 15 November 1916, sailing on the troopship Tahiti and arriving in Devonport, England, on 29 January 1917. A further period of training followed, based at Sling Camp, the New Zealand base near Salisbury. Posted to the 1st Battalion, Otago Regiment, Bill and his cohort finally set off for France on 1 March. Five days later, he completed a simple will in which he left his estate to his mother.
By then the Otago Regiment had become battle-hardened in northern France. The new recruits would have arrived in time to be included in preparing for the capture of La Basse-Ville from mid-June to the end of August 1917. It was a time for large working parties, repairing and improving old trenches and digging fresh ones. In a harbinger of things to come, it was also a time of continuous heavy rain, worsening mud and ongoing shellfire. The village of La Basse-Ville was captured, lost briefly, and then captured again, and by the end of August the Otago 1st Battalion could feel that it had performed well. Right towards the end of that month, Bill was out of action because of wounds during a gas attack, but he was back with his unit again by the beginning of September.
The greater part of September was given over to training.[2] This covered practice in trench and open warfare, wood fighting, attack and counterattack, and musketry, and in a change to earlier practice, attacking in ‘worms’ rather than waves and lines to facilitate the new notion of attacking ‘in depth’. But it wasn’t easy. The Official History records the misery:
The forward zone [was] foul and waterlogged. Across this waste the men of the Infantry, heavily burdened, and deep in thought, slowly struggled up to the front and support lines, where under the meagre shelter of those sinuous ditches they maintained their ground throughout the long months of a dreadful winter, contending against the inexpressible misery produced by the elements and the constant destruction wrought by the enemy.[3]
Plans for the Ypres offensive were developed and refined, despite the worsening state of the ground from almost continuously bad weather and persistent shelling which had shattered the drainage system so that the water had nowhere to flow. The apparent success of the British attack near Zonnebeke on 6 October encouraged the decision to renew the offensive on 12 October. The plan for the New Zealand troops involved was to take the ridge leading up to the village of Passchendaele and the village itself.[4] The day before the attack, 11 October, was said in the Official History to be ‘extremely, almost ominously, quiet’. Early that evening, the Otago troops moved closer, including Bill’s unit, the 10th company of the 1st Battalion. The plan was for assaulting waves of infantry to move forward to the attack under the protection of artillery barrages but these did not materialise. Drizzle turned into persistent rain.
During the attack on 12 October, the 10th Company was particularly hard hit. The inaccuracy of the artillery fire told when several soldiers of the Company were killed by their own shell fire before they had even reached the starting tape. Later in the morning, as the Company attempted to approach one of the German pillboxes, a party was ‘almost instantly knocked out by a single shell.’[5] In sum, waves of infantry moved forward to the attack but were unable to make any progress. During the course of that day, all of the officers of the 10th Company were killed or wounded and many soldiers too: only 28 other ranks were left unwounded.
One of the victims was 20-year-old Bill Evenden. His Army file is eloquent: on 5 November 1917 there was a note that he was missing on October 12. On 17 November, a note was added: ‘No evidence available. Taking into consideration the circumstances of the attack of 12th October 1917 it is reasonable to suppose the above named was Killed in Action in the attack on Belle Vue Spur.’ A court of enquiry on the following day concluded that it was indeed reasonable to suppose he had been killed in action.
William Evenden is commemorated close to where he died, at the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing near the Belgian town of Ypres, as well as at the Brooklyn War Memorial in the city where he had started work, and in the Kumara Memorial Hall in his home town.
His death came just over one year after the death of his aunt, Nurse Mabel Jamieson, who was one of the 10 nurses drowned on the transport ship Marquette when it was torpedoed and sunk in the Aegean Sea on its way from Egypt to Salonika. Her name is also on the plaque in the Kumara Memorial Hall.
Researched and written by Max Kerr
[1] Greymouth Evening Star, 8 December 1918.
[2] Official History of the Otago Regiment, N Z E F in the Great War- 1914–1918, A E Byrne, Wilkie and Co, 1921, p 201.
[3] Ibid p 204.
[4] Ibid p 209
[5] Ibid p 217
19 June 1897 – 12 October 1917
Regimental number 32643
William EVENDEN, or Bill as he was known, was clearly keen to join up and serve with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. His formal enlistment occurred on 28 July 1916, but his preceding medical examination was on 20 June, exactly one day after he turned 19. Perhaps not surprisingly, he declared his age to be 20.
He was born in Kumara, roughly 30 kilometres south of Greymouth on the West Coast of the South Island, and famous as the hometown of Liberal Premier Richard Seddon. Bill was the second child of Walter Henry Evenden, a miner all his life, and Maria Annie née Jamieson. He had a sister, Frances, who was born two years earlier, in 1895. His primary education was at the public school in Kumara and for his secondary schooling he attended the Hokitika District High School.
Bill passed the matriculation and junior civil service examinations while still living on the West Coast, but he continued his studies after gaining an appointment with the Department of Labour in Wellington, where he passed the senior civil service examination.[1] His career had begun well.
In what was no doubt seen as an interlude, Bill spent time after his Army service began in the military camps in Trentham and Featherston, spending 10 days in hospital at the first being treated for tonsillitis and then 28 days at the second with measles. Fit once more, Bill left New Zealand with the 19th Reinforcements on 15 November 1916, sailing on the troopship Tahiti and arriving in Devonport, England, on 29 January 1917. A further period of training followed, based at Sling Camp, the New Zealand base near Salisbury. Posted to the 1st Battalion, Otago Regiment, Bill and his cohort finally set off for France on 1 March. Five days later, he completed a simple will in which he left his estate to his mother.
By then the Otago Regiment had become battle-hardened in northern France. The new recruits would have arrived in time to be included in preparing for the capture of La Basse-Ville from mid-June to the end of August 1917. It was a time for large working parties, repairing and improving old trenches and digging fresh ones. In a harbinger of things to come, it was also a time of continuous heavy rain, worsening mud and ongoing shellfire. The village of La Basse-Ville was captured, lost briefly, and then captured again, and by the end of August the Otago 1st Battalion could feel that it had performed well. Right towards the end of that month, Bill was out of action because of wounds during a gas attack, but he was back with his unit again by the beginning of September.
The greater part of September was given over to training.[2] This covered practice in trench and open warfare, wood fighting, attack and counterattack, and musketry, and in a change to earlier practice, attacking in ‘worms’ rather than waves and lines to facilitate the new notion of attacking ‘in depth’. But it wasn’t easy. The Official History records the misery:
The forward zone [was] foul and waterlogged. Across this waste the men of the Infantry, heavily burdened, and deep in thought, slowly struggled up to the front and support lines, where under the meagre shelter of those sinuous ditches they maintained their ground throughout the long months of a dreadful winter, contending against the inexpressible misery produced by the elements and the constant destruction wrought by the enemy.[3]
Plans for the Ypres offensive were developed and refined, despite the worsening state of the ground from almost continuously bad weather and persistent shelling which had shattered the drainage system so that the water had nowhere to flow. The apparent success of the British attack near Zonnebeke on 6 October encouraged the decision to renew the offensive on 12 October. The plan for the New Zealand troops involved was to take the ridge leading up to the village of Passchendaele and the village itself.[4] The day before the attack, 11 October, was said in the Official History to be ‘extremely, almost ominously, quiet’. Early that evening, the Otago troops moved closer, including Bill’s unit, the 10th company of the 1st Battalion. The plan was for assaulting waves of infantry to move forward to the attack under the protection of artillery barrages but these did not materialise. Drizzle turned into persistent rain.
During the attack on 12 October, the 10th Company was particularly hard hit. The inaccuracy of the artillery fire told when several soldiers of the Company were killed by their own shell fire before they had even reached the starting tape. Later in the morning, as the Company attempted to approach one of the German pillboxes, a party was ‘almost instantly knocked out by a single shell.’[5] In sum, waves of infantry moved forward to the attack but were unable to make any progress. During the course of that day, all of the officers of the 10th Company were killed or wounded and many soldiers too: only 28 other ranks were left unwounded.
One of the victims was 20-year-old Bill Evenden. His Army file is eloquent: on 5 November 1917 there was a note that he was missing on October 12. On 17 November, a note was added: ‘No evidence available. Taking into consideration the circumstances of the attack of 12th October 1917 it is reasonable to suppose the above named was Killed in Action in the attack on Belle Vue Spur.’ A court of enquiry on the following day concluded that it was indeed reasonable to suppose he had been killed in action.
William Evenden is commemorated close to where he died, at the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing near the Belgian town of Ypres, as well as at the Brooklyn War Memorial in the city where he had started work, and in the Kumara Memorial Hall in his home town.
His death came just over one year after the death of his aunt, Nurse Mabel Jamieson, who was one of the 10 nurses drowned on the transport ship Marquette when it was torpedoed and sunk in the Aegean Sea on its way from Egypt to Salonika. Her name is also on the plaque in the Kumara Memorial Hall.
Researched and written by Max Kerr
[1] Greymouth Evening Star, 8 December 1918.
[2] Official History of the Otago Regiment, N Z E F in the Great War- 1914–1918, A E Byrne, Wilkie and Co, 1921, p 201.
[3] Ibid p 204.
[4] Ibid p 209
[5] Ibid p 217