The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (368) Private Charles Ernest Victor Harrington, 3rd Machine Gun Battalion, 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 Richard Cruise, the story for this day was on (368) Private Charles Ernest Victor Harrington, 3rd Machine Gun Battalion, First World War.

368 Private Charles Ernest Victor Harrington, 3rd Machine Gun Battalion
KIA 5 April 1918
Photograph: P08985.001

Story delivered 21 January 2015

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Charles Ernest Victor Harrington, who was killed fighting in France in the First World War.

Charles Harrington was born in 1897, one of two children of John and Elizabeth Harrington of Balmain, New South Wales. His mother died the year he was born. His father remarried the following year, so Charles grew up with his older sister and four half-siblings. He attended Barker College in Hornsby, and paraded with the local cadets. After leaving school he worked as a salesman – probably in his father’s photographic and cinematographic store on George Street in Sydney.

Charles enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in Marrickville, Sydney, in July 1916. He was sent to Victoria for training, and embarked for England with a reinforcement group of the 9th Machine Gun Company in October 1916. He spent another nine months training on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire before embarking for the Western Front, attached to the 23rd Machine Gun Company in September 1917.

Charles joined his unit in Belgium as the Australians were recovering from the bitter fighting of the Battle of Third Ypres. His first few months on the Western Front was spent in the relatively quiet Warneton sector, although the unit put down interdiction and harassment fire on the German lines and fired in support of Australian trench raids.

The 23rd Machine Gun Company then moved to Armentières on the Franco–Belgian border, where Charles spent most of his time training for the fighting season in the warmer months. During this time, the 23rd Machine Gun Company was restructured as part of the 3rd Machine Gun Battalion.

In March 1918 the Germans launched their Spring Offensive, a concerted effort to split the British and French armies on the river Somme. The Australians were spared the German assault that ultimately broke the stalemate of trench warfare, but they were sent south from their winter lines to blunt the German drive towards Amiens. Among them were the gunners of the 3rd Machine Gun Battalion, who were sent to defend the British line at the village of Treux.

On 5 April 1918 German troops launched a large attack on the railway embankment at Dernancourt in an attempt to overrun the Australian positions. The 3rd Machine Gun Battalion was spared the assault that fell upon the Australians at Dernancourt, but provided effective fire that decimated German attempts to capture Treux. Although it was ultimately successful in blunting the German assault at Dernancourt, victory had come at a cost. According to the unit war diary, four men of the battalion were killed by German shellfire at Treux – among them Private Charles Harrington, just 20 years old. Charles was buried at Ribemont Communal Cemetery, where he rests today.

The Harrington family were among the few with the means to travel to the battlefields of the Western Front in the early 1920s, and were somewhat consoled by visiting Charles’s final resting place.

Charles Harrington is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, along with the names of 60,000 others from the First World War. His photograph is displayed today beside the Pool of Reflection.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Private Charles Harrington, and all those Australians who have given their lives in the service of our nation.

Aaron Pegram
Historian, Military History Section