The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (2110A) Private Gordon Thomas Fidge, 5th Pioneer Battalion, AIF, 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 Joanne Smedley, the story for this day was on (2110A) Private Gordon Thomas Fidge, 5th Pioneer Battalion, AIF, First World War.

2110A Private Gordon Thomas Fidge, 5th Pioneer Battalion, AIF
DOW 1 October 1917
No photograph in collection - Image supplied by family

Story delivered 8 March 2015

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Gordon Fidge, who died of wounds in Belgium in the First World War.

Gordon Thomas Fidge was born in 1892, the oldest of six children born to Benjamin and Elizabeth Fidge of Wandearah West in South Australia. Known as “Tom” by his family, he worked as a farm labourer in the Port Pirie area in the years before the war. He enlisted in the AIF in March 1916 and underwent training in Adelaide, leaving Australia for the training camps in England as reinforcement for the 5th Pioneer Battalion in June 1916.

Tom spent two months training in England before sailing for France. He arrived in January 1917, just as the Australians were emerging from a bitterly cold winter spent in the Flers–Gueudecourt sector on the Somme. With the 5th Pioneer Battalion, Tom took part in following the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line, and would have been involved in the fighting at Bullecourt and the attack on Polygon Wood in Belgium.

Having fought at Polygon Wood, the 5th Pioneer Battalion was in camp at Dikkebush on the night of 30 September when a German aircraft flew over their camp and dropped bombs on the tent lines. Ten men were killed, and 33 were wounded. One of the wounded was Tom Fidge, who was evacuated to a nearby dressing station with multiple fragmentation wounds. But he succumbed to his wounds on the way to the casualty clearance station, and was just 26 years old when he died. He was buried at the Huts Cemetery at Dikkebush in Belgium, where he rests today.

The Fidge family regularly placed memorial notices for Tom in the local newspaper around October each year. Tom’s uncle wrote the following memorial to his nephew:

Somewhere in France he is lying,
He answered his country’s call;
He died an Australian hero,
Fighting to save us all.

Tom’s name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, along with those of more than 60,000 other Australians from the First World War. His photograph is displayed beside the Pool of Reflection.

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

Aaron Pegram
Historian, Military History Section