The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (3414) Gunner Henry Foster Midgley, 11th Brigade Australian Field Artillery, First World War

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial every day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. The story for this day was on (3414) Gunner Henry Foster Midgley, 11th Brigade Australian Field Artillery, First World War.

3414 Gunner Henry Foster Midgley, 11th Brigade Australian Field Artillery
DOW 2 August 1917
Photograph: H05867

Story delivered 15 July 2013

Today, we remember and pay tribute to Gunner Henry Foster Midgley.

Rubber worker Harry Midgley enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in July 1915 at the age of 21. Leaving Australia with the infantry, he went to Egypt, where he transferred to the artillery and became a gunner. There he met William Pepper, who would go on to be a constant mate who went through "thick and thin" with him.

The pair was sent to France to fight on the Western Front. Harry Midgley enjoyed his first impressions, writing home that he "had a lovely trip to France. It is the most beautiful scenery I have seen in all my wanderings."

From mid-1916, Midgley's artillery battery was regularly engaged in combat in France. Midgley performed a number of roles within the battery, from operating the guns to manning telephones or repairing lines. On one occasion he and another man spent three hours in the field repairing broken telephone lines. He wrote about it to his sister, saying, "my mate was hit on the right eye with a piece of shell, and I got one on the right hand, but they were only slight wounds, and not enough to keep us from our work, and we were congratulated by the Commanding Officer for good work under fire, so I suppose we must consider ourselves very lucky."

Artillery batteries constantly drew fire from German guns, and Harry wrote home about being under fire, with the shells "too close to be comfortable". He had several near-misses, once giving up his position in the telephone pit to another gunner who was buried by a shell shortly afterwards. Both men survived that incident.

Midgley avoided serious injury until June 1917, when he was shot through the ear and had to leave his battery to have the wound treated. He would not be so lucky two months later. On the first day of August 1917 Harry Midgley was brought to the 41st Casualty Clearing Station in Belgium with gunshot wounds to his hip, arm, chest and back. Although he survived another day, and everything possible was done for him, he never regained consciousness and died in the casualty clearing station.

His mate, William Pepper, wrote to Mr and Mrs Midgley in Bendigo:
I thought it the least I could do to write you a few lines and sympathise with you in your most serious loss ... I found him one of the best and can safely say there was not a man who had a bad word against him. There was no one more sorry than I when I heard of his death.

Harry Midgley was 23 years old.

His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, along with more than 60,000 others from the First World War, and his photograph is display today beside the Pool of Reflection.

This is but one of the many stories of courage and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Gunner Henry Foster Midgley, and all those Australians who have given their lives in the service of our nation.