Birth of Thomas Reiner Ollivier has family thinking of grandfather who answered WW1 call to arms

ANZAC Day will be a time of mixed emotions for Tony Ollivier who will remember his grandfather while celebrating the recent birth of his grandson.

02/04/15. World War I. He died of his wounds in Adelaide shortly after the war ended. His great, great, great grandson, Thomas Ollivier, was born on the 1st of April - 100 years after his great, great, great grandfather sailed off to war. Paul and Madi Ollivier with their newborn son Thomas. Pic. Noelle Bobrige

ANZAC Day will be a time of mixed emotions for Tony Ollivier who will remember his grandfather while celebrating the recent birth of his grandson.

The Salisbury North man welcomed his baby grandson, Thomas Reiner Ollivier, into the world at 9.52am on April 1 – almost a century after his grandfather left to fight in World War I.

“He was born 100 years after his great, great, great grandfather went to war, Mr Ollivier says.

“He’s a big boy, a very smart boy – smarter than me.”

Mr Ollivier’s grandfather, Albert Ernest Williams, departed on May 31, 1915, on the HMAT Geelong A2 as a private in South Australia’s 27th Infantry Battalion.

The 27th trained in Egypt before reinforcing the Australian and New Zealand Division at Gallipoli.

Albert Ernest Williams with wife Margaret and daughters (names unknown)

The battalion spent three months at Gallipoli, suffering relatively light casualties before being evacuated with the rest of the force.

The men filed into the France frontline in April, 1916, before fighting at Pozieres in July.

It also took part in two major attacks to the east of Flers in the Somme Valley, but the toughest fight came in September, 1917, at the Battle of Menin Road.

The battalion fought in a string of offensives and eventually assisted in capturing Broodseinde Ridge on October 4.

Its last efforts during the war were in the Beaurevoir Line in October, 1918.

Williams returned to his Wakefield St home in Adelaide and died of a seizure in December 1935, aged 47. He is buried in West Tce Cemetery.

Mr Ollivier said Williams was a “family man” who loved his children.

“We didn’t speak about him because it was too painful for his missus,” Mr Ollivier says.

“He was just a ghost in the house – we knew of him, but never met him.

“They had nine kids – seven girls and two sons, but one died. The girls used to call him dadda.”

This story is part of Messenger’s 100 Years, 100 Days, 100 Stories project, which has profiled 100 South Australian World War I heroes in the lead up to the centenary of the Allied landing on Gallipoli on April 25, 1915.

Originally published as Birth of Thomas Reiner Ollivier has family thinking of grandfather who answered WW1 call to arms