The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (2334) Private Andrew Robertson Beattie, 27th 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 Meredith Duncan, the story for this day was on (2334) Private Andrew Robertson Beattie, 27th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

2334 Private Andrew Robertson Beattie, 27th Battalion, AIF
KIA 29 August 1916
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 20 October 2015

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Andrew Robertson Beattie.

Andrew Beattie was born in 1896 to James and Jinney Beattie of Ballarat. He attended the Humffray Street State School. It seems his father died early, and in 1903 his mother remarried to James Wrigley, and at some point moved to Broken Hill in New South Wales. He went on to become a butcher.

In June 1915 Beattie travelled to an enlistment office in Adelaide to formally join the Australian Imperial Force. He was posted to the 27th Battalion, and underwent a period of training, first in Australia and later in Egypt. In late December he was sent to join his battalion at Mudros. In fact, he narrowly avoided service at Anzac as the battalion was in the process of evacuating the Gallipoli peninsula.

After a period of expansion and reorganisation back in Egypt the AIF went to France to fight on the Western Front. Private Beattie was with the 27th Battalion when it landed at Marseilles on 21 March 1916. Its first experience of set-piece battle was in the trenches in late July, attacking the strong German trenches near the French village of Pozières. After several days in the front line Beattie was evacuated with shell shock, and spent some days recovering behind the lines.

Less than a month later Beattie was back in the front line in very nearly the same position; this time facing Mouquet Farm. At 2 pm on 28 August Private Beattie was part of a machine-gun crew stationed in no man’s land when he was shot in the right side of his abdomen. The other members of the crew, trained at that time not to move men with abdominal wounds, ran for a doctor, who hurried down the line through heavy shell and machine-gun fire. Beattie’s mate Private Anderson later wrote: “he was very cheerful, and bore his pain like the hero that he was … he resigned himself to whatever was his fate.”

Beattie was finally evacuated the following morning, and he died that day in hospital at Warloy, about five miles behind the line. Anderson wrote to Beattie’s mother:

your boy was loved and respected by all of us, and fought as only a true British hero can. He was able to bear his pain, and did not suffer as much as you might think … it was a big loss to us all as we were very fond of him, and relied on him more than you can imagine.

Andrew Beattie was buried in the Warloy–Baillon Communal Cemetery. He was 21 years old.

His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among more than 60,000 Australians who died during 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 Private Andrew Robertson Beattie, and all those Australians who have given their lives in the service of our nation.

Dr Meleah Hampton
Historian, Military History Section