On 21 August 1914 the Geraldton Thistle club held a send off at the Club Hotel for William Chapman and two other Thistle players, Frederick Guest and John Allen. The three team mates joined the 11th Battalion, C Company, and landed together at Gallipoli on the morning of 25 April 1915. Private Chapman received a gunshot wound to the foot that day and was treated on the hospital ship and rejoined his comrades two weeks later.
He survived Gallipoli and was shipped to the Western Front in April 1916 where he caught influenza in France and was hospitalised in England. After his recovery he went AWL for 14 days for which he received 14 days detention, had a bout of VD and by 29 September 1917 was promoted to Lance Corporal.
One month later, on 30 October 1917, Chapman was killed in action in a field in a field in Belgium. He was 24 years of age. Sadly, neither of his two team mates from the send off survived the war.
John Allen was killed at Gallipoli on 2 May 1915 and Guest met the same fate in a field in France on 8 August 1918. William’s brother Joseph Chapman, captain of Thistle in 1914, also served in the war and was killed in action in France on 30 May 1916.