The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (208) Corporal Michell Picaud, 1st 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 Troy Clayton, the story for this day was on (208) Corporal Michell Picaud, 1st Battalion, AIF, First World War.

208 Corporal Michell Picaud, 1st Battalion, AIF
KIA 25 April 1915
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 29 April 2015

Today we remember and pay tribute to Corporal Michell Picaud, who was killed during the First World War.

Michell Picaud was born in New South Wales, to Frenchman Francois Picaud and his wife, Eliza, whom he married in Sydney in 1879. Michell attended St Mary’s Christian Brothers School, and became a mechanic. He had five years’ experience in the Australian Infantry Regiment of the Citizens’ Militia Forces, and so when he enlisted in the AIF within weeks of the declaration of the First World War he was quickly promoted to sergeant.

Picaud went with the 1st Battalion to Egypt to continue training. In early April the battalion left Cairo and, after a march to Alexandria, boarded SS Minnewaska, bound for the Gallipoli peninsula. That night, Picaud joined a group of men with passes who left the ship for an evening in town. He was caught without a pass, and, after being arrested, escaped custody. Picaud apparently had no intention of going missing permanently, because the next day he had returned to the battalion on board Minnewaska. As a result of this adventure, Picaud was demoted to corporal.

Much of the time spent on board the transport ship was in loading the hold and preparing for action. On arrival at Mudros Harbour the troops practiced embarking and disembarking from boats in preparation for the landing.

Corporal Picaud’s battalion was part of the second and third wave of soldiers to land on the beaches around Anzac Cove during the morning of 25 April 1915. The men landed without loss, and were quickly “thrown in to the firing line” to reinforce various units already on the cliffs. At some point during that day Corporal Picaud was mortally wounded by enemy fire. Several witnesses saw him pull the bolt from his rifle and throw it away as he lay dying.

In the confusion of that day and the hectic days that followed, Michell Picaud’s body was lost. He has no known grave.

Corporal Picaud’s widowed mother would later lose a second son to the war; in 1917 Michell’s elder brother Victor died of wounds while fighting in Belgium.

The names of Michell Picaud and his brother Victor are listed on the Roll of Honour to my right, along with more than 60,000 other names 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 Corporal Michell Picaud, and all those Australians who have given their lives in the service of our nation.

Dr Meleah Hampton
Historian, Military History Section

Sources:
www.ancestry.com

www.awm.gov.au: Australian War Memorial; collection; unit histories, Red Cross Wounded and Missing; Roll of Honour database.

1st Battalion War Diary, Australian War Memorial: AWM4 23/18.

National Archives of Australia, service record, Michell Picaud.