Private Allan Williams: 1890 – 1918 We will remember!

As we commemorate ANZAC Day this year it is important to shine light on our Samoan soldiers who gave their lives to fight in WWI.

The most dramatic consequences of WWI were the human ones. It was the first time that the world had such a ‘connected’ traumatic experience.

For this reason, every enquiry into the lives of soldiers’ experiences is of great importance, regardless of how subjective or fragmented those lines of enquiries may be.

Whether we agree with them or not, they are full of insights of our people’s experiences and truths about them. Our understanding of their personal experiences as soldiers, as humans, will not only shape but sustain the memory of these sons of Samoa.

It is amazing how a local European event in 1914 ensnared the lives of indigenous populations, in far flung corners of the globe such as Samoa. That little event in the Balkans swelled into a world war and altered realities for millions.

What made the war infectious was the fact that those European authorities involved in the turmoil were also intercontinental empires. It is heavily documented in Samoan and New Zealand history that British colonial capillaries webbed into the Pacific, animated the New Zealand military to take over Samoa immediately after WWI broke out.

Yet very little is known about the lives of Samoan soldiers, who were affected by these colonial entanglements.

Private Allan Williams was one such individual who expressed his patriotic spirit by travelling to New Zealand with other Samoan young men to join the war. Allan was born in the district of Aleipata, where his father, Alan Williams (Snr) was running a boat building and carpentry operation. His mother was Faala from Matautu, Lefaga.

Allan was the eldest of ten children and his family were members of the Church of England. His Anglican affiliation and the social relations with the part European Samoans shaped his enthusiasm to enlist. Allan was not at the Gallipoli campaign which saw many New Zealand and Australian soldiers had their baptism of fire 100 years ago. However, his trade as a carpenter placed him in a position where he was able to get news from sailing crews about the atrocities in Gallipoli and sparked a patriotic affections in the young carpenter.

Moreover, being the eldest son, he must have felt obligated to answer the call to arm, a price one has to pay for citizenship.

He enlisted with the 4th Maori Contingent on the 23 December 1915, at the age of 24. He underwent strict military training together with the other Samoan soldiers he enlisted with, at Narrow Neck Military Camp in Auckland and later at Trentham, Wellington. Six months later, he embarked on the TS ‘Tahiti’ from Wellington, New Zealand for Devonport, England as part of the 14th Reinforcements of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF). Once in Europe he was transferred to the Pioneer Maori Battalion and was placed in the Rarotonga Company.

This was a special unit draw together mostly by the famous Maori Member of Parliament, the Honorable Maui Pomare; to make up the numbers of the Maori Battalion.

Allan was a picture of health when he first enlisted. A month after he joined the Pioneer Battalion at the front, he became sick with influenza, trench fever and pneumonia.

These illnesses heavily punctuated his presence while on active services in Britain, France and Egypt. Apart from being a soldier, Allan was also a young man in his prime, exploring his new social environment and enjoying a drink or two when he had the chance.

An interesting entry in his army personnel file showed how he was forfeited ten days pay for drunkenness and for violently resisting the military police.

But the cold weather and the damp conditions of the trenches caused Allan to be constantly sick the entire time he was at the front. In June 1918 while in Cairo, he was noted to be ‘dangerously ill’ from an infection of the right mastoid and died from it on the 26 July.

He was given a soldier’s burial at Ramleh War Cemetery in Jaffa, in what was then Palestine but is now part of Israel.

Private Allan Williams’ journey as a soldier characterized the colonial entanglement experienced by many soldiers at the same time. He was a part European Samoan who fought to defend the British Empire with the NZEF. He was placed with the celebrated yet politicized Pioneer Maori Battalion and died as a ‘Rarotonga soldier’.

What Allan might or might not have considered was that the same expeditionary force he was a member of, was responsible for the Spanish influenza that killed some 23% of the Samoan population, including his father and most of his family which left a generation gap in the family. Most of his father’s relatives who survived the influenza left Samoa and resettled with other relatives in Fiji. Allan’s siblings, mostly girls moved with the rest of the family, breaking communications with the New Zealand army authorities.

No record exists about how Allan’s family was notified of his death. However, his personnel file showed that the New Zealand Defense Force (NZDF) sent his WWI scroll, plaque and medals to his father in Apia in 1922. These were returned. The NZDF then sent them to his brother, Ezra in Lautoka, who worked for the Colonial Sugar Refinery Company but were returned a year later.

As a relative, I enquired to the NZDF about this and requested a reprint or a copy of the scroll so I can see an image because no photograph of Allan exists.

However, I was informed this was not possible. I was disappointed because I thought that having a visual image would bring some closure to the family. I changed focus and thought I would try to find the grave of this young Samoan soldier. The New Zealand RSA directed me to the War Graves Photographic Project based in Great Britain in association with the Commonwealth war graves. I paid a small donation to thank them for helping me and after a few days, I was sent a digital picture of his grave. I was emotional when I looked at the photograph for the first time. I felt a sense of relief, seeing his grave with his fallen comrades.

This is not just the story of Private Allan Williams. It is a Samoan and a global story as well. It illuminates how WWI as an event caused colonial subjects to be entangled in war politics at the many theatres in Europe and Northern Africa.

It shaped peoples personal identities and willingly set out 100 years ago to justify it by shedding blood for God, King and country at the time. It is a story that illustrates how wars heightened people’s living experiences at the home front, altering the realities of the present generations. Private Allan Willams’ illustrates that the greatest consequence of war is a human one.