The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (2387) Lance Corporal John Michael Hanney, 2nd Battalion 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 Meredith Duncan, the story for this day was on (2387) Lance Corporal John Michael Hanney, 2nd Battalion Australian Machine Gun Corps, First World War.

2387 Lance Corporal John Michael Hanney, 2nd Battalion Australian Machine Gun Corps
KIA 9 April 1918
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 30 January 2014

Today we remember and pay tribute to Lance Corporal John Michael Hanney.

Jack Hanney was the only son of Mr and Mrs J.M. Hanney of Parkes, New South Wales. He was working as a saddler when the First World War began, and enlisted in July 1915. He went to Egypt with the 5th reinforcements to the 18th Battalion. There he ran into a friend who wrote home to say:
… the whole of the lads are in the pink of condition and best of health and wish to be remembered to their friends. We are looking forward to the time when the war is ended and we are all back again in dear old Australia.

Hanney was too late to serve on the Gallipoli peninsula and instead was sent to England and transferred to the 5th Machine Gun Company in December 1916. Hanney spent some time training others, but returned to the front line later in 1917 and was promoted to lance corporal. His role in the 5th Battalion of the Australian Machine Gun Corps was to form part of the crew of a Vickers gun, which typically required six to eight men to work effectively. The gun and its attendant equipment would be sent as far forward as possible by horse-drawn limber before the crews would carry it in pieces to its position.

On 9 April 1918 two gun crews were going into action at Hangard late at night. They were unloading their Vickers guns, tripods and ammunition from the limber when a shell fell into the middle of the gun team with whom Hanney was working. Lance Corporal Jack Hanney was killed instantly along with Private James McKnight.

Artillery on the Western Front often took lives arbitrarily and when least expected. Jack Hanney’s body was carried away in the limber that brought up the gun he had been helping to unload minutes earlier. He was buried by an English padre next to McKnight in the small French village of Boves. John Michael Hanney was considered “a very popular man”, someone for whom “everybody had a good word”. Though he died a somewhat anonymous death on the battlefield, he was remembered by and well thought of by his mates.

His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, along with more than 60,000 others from the First World War. There is no photograph in the collection to display 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 Lance Corporal John Michael Hanney, and all of those Australians who have given their lives in service of our nation.