Private Arthur Werndly
- Rank
- Private
- Service number
- 3229
- Unit
- 46 Battalion
- Cause of death
- Killed in Action
- Place of death
- Hindenburg Line, France
- Date of death
- 18 September 1918
- Age
- 34
- Plaque number
- M333
- Co-located plaques
- M333A - PTE Frederick Werndly
- Dedicated by
- Family on 12 February 2022
- More information
Biography presented during plaque dedication:
Arthur Werndly was born in Glen Osmond, South Australia in February 1884 to parents Henry and Martha Werndly. Arthur was one of ten siblings.
It is believed the family arrived moved to the Armadale area of Western Australia around 1897. The took up a farm was situated on Fremantle Road, later called Forrest Road. Arthur’s father Henry died in 1906 aged 54 years.
Arthur moved to Dowerin in the central wheatbelt of West Australia to take up farming. His younger brother Frederick is believed to have accompanied him.
Arthur enlisted into the Australian Imperial Force aged 32 in October 1916 where he was allocated to 46 Infantry Battalion. He embarked from Fremantle in December 1916 aboard HMAT Persic, arriving in England in March 1917.
While in England he was transferred to a training battalion, before proceeding overseas to France to join his battalion in June 1917. He had missed the battle for Bullecourt from which his battalion was resting due to the heavy casualties it had sustained.
The rest was not for long with the battalion moving to Belgium in June 1917 to be involved in the battles of Messines and Passchendaele. By March 1918, Arthur returned back to the Somme region of France and by April was in the frontline again, defeating the German offensive at Dernancourt.
In August 1918 the allied offensive had commenced to push the Germans back from Villers Bretonneux where Arthur was back in the frontline.
On 18 September 1918 Arthur was involved in a battle to secure a part of an outpost of the Hindenburg Line near the French village of Le Verguier. He went out under shell fire at a trench line called ‘Bob Trench’ to bring in a wounded comrade. As he reached his comrade, Arthur was hit and killed by German shell fire. He was later buried with the comrade on the battlefield.
Private Arthur Werndly, service number 3329 of 46 Battalion, was killed in action in France on 18 September 1918, aged 35 years.
Arthur was later re-interred in the Jeancourt Communal Cemetery Extension, France and is remembered with honour.
His plaque is placed alongside that of his younger brother Private Frederick Werndly of 32 Battalion.