The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of Lieutenant Theodor Milton Pflaum, 25th Company Australian Machine Gun Corps, 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 Charis May, the story for this day was on Lieutenant Theodor Milton Pflaum, 25th Company Australian Machine Gun Corps, First World War.

Second Lieutenant Theodor Milton Pflaum, 25th Company Australian Machine Gun Corps
KIA 24 September 1917
Photograph: P09521.001

Story delivered 12 November 2013

Today we remember and pay tribute to Second Lieutenant Theodor Milton Pflaum, whose photograph is displayed today beside the Pool of Reflection.

Theodor Pflaum was the son of Theodor and Mary Jane Pflaum of the Adelaide Hills. His father had emigrated from the Danish province of Holstein in the 1860s. Theo was born in Blumberg, and attended the local primary and high schools. He studied at Muirden Senior College and obtained employment as a clerk with Elders. He enlisted in July 1915, around the same time as two of his brothers.

Private Pflaum left Australia late in 1915 with the 32nd Battalion but shortly after his arrival in Egypt he transferred to the 8th Machine Gun Company. Shortly after being transferred to France the company participated in the battle of Fromelles with the 5th Australian Division. During this battle Theodor Pflaum's brother Raymond, still with the 32nd Battalion, was fatally wounded and died in German captivity. Theo was the last person to see him alive.

Theo Pflaum proved to be an able soldier, and in early 1917 he was commissioned second lieutenant and transferred to the 25th Machine Gun Company. He spent several months in England undertaking some training courses as well as acting as an instructor. He rejoined his battalion in France in early September 1917.

Three weeks after he rejoined his battalion he was one of five officers sent with a party of fifty men to prepare gun positions for forthcoming operations. While Pflaum was supervising the sending forward of material to advanced positions he was shot in the leg, resulting in a compound fracture. He was dead on admission to the casualty clearing station.

In 1917 Blumberg had its name changed to Birdwood in a widespread South Australian movement to anglicise Germanic-sounding names. Theodor and Raymond Pflaum's father, a friend of William Birdwood's, was one of the strongest advocates for keeping the name Birdwood instead of changing it back after the war. Four of his sons went to enlist in the war: one was turned down on medical grounds and one returned, while two, Theodor and Raymond, never came home.

The names of Theodor and Raymond Pflaum are listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, along with 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 Second Lieutenant Theodor Milton Pflaum, his brother Private Raymond Holstein Pflaum, and all of those Australians who have given their lives in the service of our nation.