The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (3367) Gunner Walter Carmody, 53rd Battalion (Infantry), First World War

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each 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. Hosted by Richard Cruise, the story for this day was on (3367) Gunner Walter Carmody, 53rd Battalion (Infantry), First World War.

1727 Gunner Walter Carmody, 11th Brigade Australian Field Artillery
KIA 22 July 1917
Photograph: H05458

Story delivered 8 November 2013

Today we remember and pay tribute to Gunner Walter Carmody.

Walter Carmody was born in the town of Raymond Terrace in New South Wales. He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in January 1915 at the age of 21, and left Australia with the 4th reinforcements to the 15th Battalion.

Carmody went to Gallipoli with the infantry, and was shot through the thigh in August 1915. He spent two months in hospital recovering before rejoining his unit on the peninsula in October. He left there on Christmas Day, 1915.

After the evacuation the AIF underwent a period of reorganisation and training in Egypt. As a part of this reorganisation, Carmody opted to join the artillery in March 1916, transferring out of the infantry. He went to France to fight on the Western Front with the 11th Brigade of the Australian Field Artillery.

Aside from a brief period of illness in December 1916, Gunner Carmody never left his artillery brigade again. The brigade spent most of 1917 in Belgium, firing against the German positions around Messines and later Ypres and Passchendaele. On 22 July 1917 they were in action near the Belgian town of Hollebeke when Carmody's unit came under fire. A shell burst on the parapet of the trench as Carmody and two other men, Gunner John Ashhurst and Bombardier Robert Birt, were taking cover in it. All three men were hit by fragments of the burst and were killed instantly.

Carmody was buried beside his companions in Belgium. He was just 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 displayed 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 Walter Carmody, and all of those Australians who have given their lives in the service of our nation.