Seven months before the troops landed at Gallipoli, a sailor from Melbourne became the nation's first casualty of World War 1. Able seaman William 'Billy' Williams was shot in the stomach on a narrow dirt road in the dense jungles of east New Britain in what was then known as German New Guinea. Mortally wounded, he died shortly after. But the event was forgotten, overshadowed by Gallipoli and the role it played in forging the nation's mythology.
