The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (8224) Sapper Leonard Lindsay Basham, Australian Tunnelling Details, 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 Robyn Siers, the story for this day was on (8224) Sapper Leonard Lindsay Basham, Australian Tunnelling Details, First World War.

8224 Sapper Leonard Lindsay Basham, Australian Tunnelling Details
KIA 20 April 1918
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 19 March 2014

Today we remember and pay tribute to Sapper Leonard Lindsay Basham.

Leonard Basham was the eldest son of Walter and Diana Basham. He was born in North Melbourne but grew up in and around Essendon. His father was an auctioneer and estate agent, and Leonard attended the Ararat Grammar School, where his father grew up and his grandfather John Basham still lived. He proved to be a "particularly bright and promising lad", and went on to study at the Junior Technical School and then the Working Men's College in Melbourne. Leonard eventually qualified as an electrical engineer, and gained employment in Melbourne.

Basham was also interested in military matters, and had experience in cadets as a boy and later the Citizens' Militia Force in Essendon. He tried to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force around the time he turned 18; however, although he was reasonably tall for the time - five feet eight inches - he was also slight, and was turned down because of his physique. He tried again in September 1917 and this time was accepted. His technical background saw him drafted to the engineers, and he later found himself in Tunnelling Details.

Sapper Basham underwent a period of training in Australia and England before being sent to France in late March 1918. The day before his arrival the Germans had launched their great Spring Offensive and had made enormous territorial gains. Basham was in Belgium, away from the first outbreak, but was soon to experience a smaller but still successful German operation.

During a retreat from Kemmel, in Belgium, Sapper Basham was one of three men to accompany Corporal Sirisier to a place where new trenches needed to be dug. They were engaged in marking out where the trenches would go for the working party from the Labour Corps to follow. As they were working, a shell fell alongside the party. It exploded, and a piece hit Sapper Basham in the head, killing him instantly. Because of the urgency of the situation, his mates could not stay to bury him, but left his body in the care of an English padre who saw him buried near where he fell and marked the grave with a cross.

Basham had been on the battlefield less than a month when he was killed. His body was reinterred in a Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery after the war, and his final resting place is at the Meteren Military Cemetery in France. He was survived and deeply mourned by his parents, Walter and Diana, his sister, Dorothy, and brother, Walter. In Moonee Ponds, where his parents were then living, a "most impressive memorial service" was conducted at the local Methodist church to remember Sapper Leonard Basham and Private Carlyle Ryan, another local lad. It was reported that "few eyes were dry" during the service. Leonard Basham was 19 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. There is no photograph in the Memorial's 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 Sapper Leonard Lindsay Basham, and all of those Australians who have given their lives in the service of our nation.