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.

Illustration by Dionne Gain

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.

“But we were only able to send those forces overseas because our region was secure.”

The British defeated the retreating East German Squadron at the Battle of the Falklands three months after Billy’s death.

“Papua New Guinea has always been at the core of Australia’s and the region’s security as part of the gateway from South-East Asia to the South Pacific,” explains Dean.

“Our overriding interest since we were occupied by Europeans has been to make sure that no power in the Pacific that was not aligned with us could get a foothold in the Pacific. In........

© The Sydney Morning Herald