General News
17 July, 2023
William Arthur 'Tot' Bond
It was 108 years ago, on July 19 1915, that William Arthur ‘Tot’ Bond enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). Exactly one year later, on July 19 1916, he was killed at Fromelles on the Western Front. Tot was born at Pimpinio in 1890...
It was 108 years ago, on July 19 1915, that William Arthur ‘Tot’ Bond enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF).
Exactly one year later, on July 19 1916, he was killed at Fromelles on the Western Front.
Tot was born in Pimpinio in 1890, and his family later moved to the Mornington Peninsula.
By 1914 he and his younger brother, Charles, were back in the Wimmera, farm labourers around Antwerp.
In July 1915, they travelled to Melbourne to enlist in the AIF.
By the time they sailed from Australia in late 1915 the Gallipoli campaign was ending.
The Bonds trained in Egypt and in June 1916 sailed to Marseilles in France.
Like thousands of young, untravelled Australians, the long train journey north to the Western Front was "an unforgettable episode".
Tot probably had similar impressions as Jim Griffin from Hopetoun, who described "a lovely country, covered with small villages".
Perhaps he also gave buttons to girls "all along the route [who] used to rush along the carriages looking for souvenirs, with the result that a lot of boys have very few buttons on their overcoats".
The Australians first saw the Western Front when they arrived at "The Nursery", then were slowly introduced to trench warfare near Armentières.
Tot may have been one who was taken to this "quiet" section of the Front.
He might have seen No Man’s Land from the Allied trenches.
On July 19 1916, when Australians made their first attack on that Front, many were still unfamiliar with this sector and some had not even seen the front line.
In the late afternoon of July 19, British and Australian forces attacked across the wide, flat No Man’s Land towards the Sugar Loaf, a German position in front of the little village of Fromelles.
"The first wave went down like wheat before the reaper," wrote one observer.
The Sugar Loaf bristled with machine guns, and two Victorian battalions, the 59th and 60th, were practically wiped out.
The 58th Battalion, Tot’s battalion, was in reserve but at 9pm two companies made a "brave but hopeless" attempt: they went forward "with splendid dash opposite the Sugar Loaf".
When they were two-thirds of the way across No Man’s Land, German machine guns opened fire, the line "shattered and the men dazed".
The two companies were "practically annihilated".
One year to the day after he had enlisted in Melbourne, 2575 Private William Bond was dead.
In the morning light of the following day, the Australian trenches resembled a charnel house.
Historian Ross McMullin wrote of that night: "The worst 24 hours in Australian history occurred... at Fromelles.
"Not the worst in Australian military history, the worst 24 hours in Australia’s entire history."