The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (26176) Gunner John Leonard Herbert Lamb, 14th Battery 5th 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. Hosted by Richard Cruise, the story for this day was on (26176) Gunner John Leonard Herbert Lamb, 14th Battery 5th Brigade Australian Field Artillery, First World War.

26176 Gunner John Leonard Herbert Lamb, 5th Brigade AFA
KIA 5 August 1917
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 4 August 2013

Today, we remember and pay tribute to Gunner John Leonard Herbert Lamb.

Leonard Lamb was born in Port Adelaide and enlisted in the first AIF in January 1916, although he had been on active service with the Australian Garrison Artillery in Fort Largs, South Australia, before that. Initially a private, he quickly sat and passed an examination to become a gunner in the artillery. He was sent to fight on the Western Front and arrived in France in March 1917.

Within five months on the Western Front, Gunner Lamb would be dead. Little was known at the time of the details of his death. His battery was in the field near Hill 60 in the southern part of the Ypres Salient in Belgium. He is recorded as being killed on the day they withdrew from the line - 5 August 1917. Lamb and four others of his gun crew were reported missing, and their names were written on the Memorial to the Missing at the Menin Gate, Ypres.

After the war, work began to repair the damaged landscape left by battle. Small battlefield cemeteries and lone graves were exhumed and reburied with uniform headstones in formalised cemeteries under British control. Hundreds of these dot northern France today, but many more informal burial grounds existed before this process. During the course of this work, a grave marked as containing five unknown Australian soldiers was discovered just north of Hill 60 in Belgium. By examining objects in the grave, staff of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission were able to identify the remains of Gunner Leonard Lamb and his companions.

This bright, happy man, who was mourned by a wide circle of friends and was just 23 years old when he died, has since been buried in Sanctuary Wood Cemetery near Zillebeke, Belgium, with a headstone bearing his name as a lasting memorial.

Leonard Lamb's name is listed on the Roll of Honour on your left, along with around more than 60,000 others from the First World War.

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