The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (NX137331) Lance Corporal John Reginald Woods, 2/10th Battalion, Second 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 Craig Blanch, the story for this day was on (NX137331) Lance Corporal John Reginald Woods, 2/10th Battalion, Second World War.

NX137331 Lance Corporal John Reginald Woods, 2/10th Battalion
KIA 22 January 1944
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 23 December 2014

Today we remember Lance Corporal John Reginald Woods, who was killed in New Guinea in 1944.

Known as “Jack”, John Reginald Woods was born in Quirindi, in the North West Slopes region of New South Wales, on 4 April 1922. He was the oldest child of Martin and Mavis Woods – one of the pioneering families of Canberra. Following John’s birth the family returned to Canberra and another son, Kevin Martin Woods, was born in 1924. On leaving school John worked as a bus conductor for the ACT Transport Commission and lived with his family on the property “Rose Glen” at Woden.

Following the outbreak of the Pacific War, John Woods was called up for the Militia, serving as a trooper in the 7th Motor Regiment, a motorised light horse unit raised with men from the Canberra–Goulbourn district. In late 1942 Woods was among 120 men from the regiment transferred to Queensland’s 11th Motor Regiment.

The 11th Motor Regiment spent much of 1943 based in Gympie, training and carrying out various exercises. In early July a draft of ten officers and 360 Other Ranks, including John Woods, was transferred to the veteran 7th Division’s 2/10th Battalion, then at Ravenshoe on the Atherton Tableland.

A South Australian unit, the 2/10th Battalion had served in the siege of Tobruk in 1941 before fighting in Papua in 1942, first at Milne Bay and then in the bloody beachhead battles of Buna and Sanananda in December 1942 and January 1943. According to the unit historian, the infantrymen christened the Queenslanders and New South Welshmen the “Forty Thousand Horsemen”, saying, “They were of good physique, well trained, and jolly fine fellows.”

In August 1943 Woods and the 2/10th Battalion returned to Papua. From September, units from the 7th Division became heavily committed in the Allies’ offensive in New Guinea, capturing Lae and moving into the Markham and Ramu valleys. On New Year’s Day 1944 the 2/10th Battalion began moving by air to Dumpu, taking up positions in the narrow razorback ridges of the Ramu Valley.

The battalion spent early January 1944 patrolling and becoming acclimatised to the conditions and terrain. During this time, the Australian forces were planning to take the feature known as Shaggy Ridge, and in the afternoon of 22 January the 2/10th’s B Company unsuccessfully attacked well-prepared Japanese positions.

John Woods was among the dead. He was 21 years old. His best friend, Harold Thomas, with whom he had worked before joining the army, and Private James “Gerald” Doyle, another man from the Canberra region, were also killed in the action.

John’s brother Kevin joined the Royal Australian Air Force in 1943. He survived the war and was discharged in March 1946.

John Woods is buried in Lae War Cemetery in New Guinea. He is one of six men from the Canberra region remembered on the 2/10th Battalion Memorial Cairn in Eddison Park at Woden. He is also commemorated here, on the Roll of Honour on my left, along with some 40,000 Australians who died during the Second World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Lance Corporal John Reginald Woods and all those Australians who have given their lives in the service of our nation.

Dr Karl James
Historian, Military History Section

Sources:
11th Motor Regiment war diary, routine order part II no. 5, 19 February 1943, January–March 1943, Australian War Memorial (AWM): AWM52, 2/2/28;
2/10th Battalion war diary, July 1943 and January 1944, AWM: AWM52, 8/3/10;
“Roll of honour”, The Canberra Times, 22 February 1944;
Frank Allchin, Purple and blue: the history of the 2/10th Battalion, AIF, (the Adelaide Rifles), 4th ed. (Digital Reproductions: 2008);
“WOODS, John Reginald”, http://www.memorial.act.gov.au/person.php?id=122, accessed 16 December 2013.