The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (1365) Lieutenant Henry Ellis, 17th 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 Craig Berelle, the story for this day was on (1365) Lieutenant Henry Ellis, 17th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

1365 Lieutenant Henry Ellis 17th Battalion, AIF
DOW 16 April 1917
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 17 March 2015

Today we remember and pay tribute to Lieutenant Henry Ellis.

Henry Ellis was born in September 1886 in Caledon in County Tyrone, Ireland, to James Ellis, a policeman serving with the Royal Irish Constabulary, and his wife, Mary. By 1901 the family had moved to Strabane and Harry had been joined by a brother, Thomas, and sister, Mary.

Henry Ellis followed his father into the Royal Irish Constabulary, and served there for five years. In 1913 he immigrated to Australia and settled in Mosman, New South Wales. During this period he met and later began a relationship with Katherine Scully, an Irishwoman originally from Waterford. He was living in Boyle Street and working as a shop assistant when the First World War began.

Ellis enlisted on 11 August for service with the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force, raised to destroy German communication stations in New Britain and to occupy German territories in the region.

Ellis served with the headquarters company of the ANMEF’s infantry battalion and, being a keen photographer, documented many of the force’s activities. Some of his images were used to illustrate a diary written by one of his comrades during the six-month deployment.

Ellis returned briefly to Mosman, but on in April he again enlisted at the Liverpool Camp, this time joining the newly raised 17th Battalion’s D Company. At the end of the month he was promoted to lance corporal.

On 7 May he married Katherine at the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church near their home in Mosman. Only five days later he embarked with his unit from Sydney aboard the transport ship Themistocles.

After landing in Egypt, where he was promoted corporal, Ellis and his battalion were sent to Gallipoli, where two days after landing they took part in the disastrous attack on Hill 60. Ellis served on Gallipoli until the evacuation, prior to which he had been promoted to sergeant.

The battalion returned to Egypt early in 1916 to rest and re-organise. Ellis was promoted to second lieutenant in early March and less than a week later had embarked with his unit for France.

After serving in the sector around Armentières, in June Ellis was evacuated to England with trench foot. He re-joined the 17th Battalion in September, but was evacuated to England again in November: his service on Rabaul and Gallipoli had taken its toll.

Promoted to lieutenant in early March 1917, Ellis re-joined his battalion in France later that month, and in April the battalion moved into positions near Lagnicourt. In the early hours of 15 April, after an intense artillery barrage, a German attack was launched against the Australians in this sector.

The Australians were driven back and German troops moved to the 17th Battalion’s right flank. Bean recorded in his official history that “two platoons of a reserve company of the 17th were sent under Lieutenant Ellis … but were met by heavy machine-gun fire which caused sharp loss”.

Ellis was one of those losses. He was admitted to the 3rd Casualty Clearing Station with a gunshot wound and compound fracture to his thigh. He died the following day, laid to rest in the Grévillers British Cemetery near Bapaume. He was 31 years old.

Ellis’s name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, along with more than 60,000 others from the First World War.

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

Michael Kelly
Historian, Military History Section