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William Allan HAILES DSO CBE

HAILES

Date of birth9 June 1891
PlaceMoonee Ponds, Victoria, Australia
ParentsWalter Crossdell and Isabel McDonald (nee Smith) Hailes
Date of death22 January 1949
PlaceEast Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Age57
Scotch Year(s)1905 to 1908

Service record and post-war life

The son of a commercial traveller, William played cricket for Scotch's 1st XI in 1907 and 1908. He graduated in 1914 at Melbourne University with first class final honours in medicine, surgery and gynaecology. He came second in a cohort of 77. He was also a fine batsman, and had a place in the University Eleven. He served two years as a Private in the Melbourne University Rifles. William was a Resident Doctor and then Registrar at the Melbourne Hospital. On enlisting he was 24 years old.

He was appointed as a Captain and Regimental Medical Officer to the 4th Field Artillery Brigade on 14 September 1915. It departed Melbourne for Suez on 18 November that year. In March 1916 he arrived in France. He was recommended unsuccessfully for a Military Cross at Pozieres, for attending to severely wounded men in Sausage Valley under heavy fire on 10 August 1916. Instead he was Mentioned in Despatches ‘for good and gallant conduct during the recent hard fighting round Pozieres.’ In December 1916 he was attached to the 20th Battalion as Regimental Medical Officer. On 29 January 1917 he was promoted to Major. William went to hospital sick for eight days in February 1917.

William was Mentioned in Despatches on 7 November 1917 ‘for distinguished and gallant services and devotion to duty in the field during the period 26th Feb 1917 to midnight 20 and 21 Sep 1917.’ In November 1917 he received the DSO for his work at Passchendaele Ridge on 9 October 1917 (see recommendation below). The citation,  reproduced below, says the award was for ‘conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in attending four wounded men in the open under heavy fire and conveying them to cover. His example stimulated the stretcher-bearers to great efforts under most trying circumstances.’

On 26 January 1918 he was posted to the 1st Australian General Hospital. In September 1918 William was attached to No. 1 Surgical Team. In England he undertook three months’ educational leave and was demobilised in September 1919 before completing a FRCS [Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons] diploma. He was discharged on 27 September 1919.

William became a fellow of the Royal Australasian College and Surgeons and the Royal College of Surgeons in 1919. In 1920 he became a surgeon at the [Royal] Melbourne Hospital out-patients and in 1934 he became a surgeon to its in-patients. William re-enlisted in the AIF in 1940 and served in the Middle East as a consulting surgeon from December 1940 until 1941 with the rank of brigadier. From 1942 he was director of surgery at the Australian Military Forces’ Land Headquarters for which he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1944. William was also the censor in chief for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He retired from the [Royal] Melbourne Hospital shortly before his sudden death in 1949 at East Melbourne. He had married Mary Maud Whitfield (d. 1974) in 1920 and they had three daughters, two of whom married Old Boys. Their Kay grandson and great grandsons attended Scotch.

Photographs and Documents:

hailesWA

A form concerning William Hailes completed at around the time of his enlistment. Interesting is the fact that he was asked if he could ride.

hailesWA

William Hailes is third from the left in the second row, in officer’s uniform, in this photo of Old Scotch Collegians in the 4th Field Artillery Brigade. From the 1917 Collegian

hailesWA

This studio photograph of 4th Field Artillery Brigade officers was taken in the Somme area, probably in 1916. William Hailes is in the centre of the back row. Major Robert Hore, on the right of Hailes, would die of wounds in October 1918. Major Cyril Albert Clowes, DSO MC, at front right, would become famous for commanding Australian forces that defeated a Japanese invasion at Milne Bay in 1942. The photo, which Clowes wrote was taken at a moment’s notice, shows the men posing with a toy sheep.

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William Hailes is at the centre of the second row of this photo of the 20th Battalion cricket team, which won the 5th Brigade Cricket Competition in 1917. Hailes was the most senior officer in this unit. The captain of the team was Private A.A. Broadhead, at centre front.

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William Hailes is at far right in the second row from the back in this portrait of officers of the 20th Battalion in Belgium on 2 September 1917. Four of the pictured men would die in the fighting that was soon to commence at Ypres.

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Citation from William Hailes’ service record

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Major Hailes is in the third row back, second from the right and directly behind the nurse in this photograph of the 1st Australian General Hospital at Rouen on 23 September 1918.

Sources:

  1. Australian War Memorial – Honours and Awards
  2. ‘Hailes WA’, Empire Call website, http://empirecall.pbworks.com/w/page/33642981/Hailes%20W%20A%20%20%20%20Capt
  3. Mishura Scotch Database
  4. National Archives of Australia – B2455, HAILES W A
  5. Scotch Collegian 1917
  6. The AIF Project - https://www.aif.adfa.edu.au/showPerson?pid=122398

Page last updated: 11 November 2015