The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (QX20249) Gunner Lawrence Sheppard, 2/10th Field Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery, Second AIF, Second 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 (QX20249) Gunner Lawrence Sheppard, 2/10th Field Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery, Second AIF, Second World War.

QX20249, Gunner Lawrence Sheppard, 2/10th Field Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery, Second AIF
DOD 5 March 1944
No photograph in collection – supplied by family

Story delivered 3 November 2015

Today we remember and pay tribute to Gunner Lawrence Sheppard, killed on active service during the Second World War.

Born in Brisbane on 10 February 1917, Lawrence Sheppard was the son of Albert and Maud Sheppard. He was working as a bricklayer in Rockhampton at the time of his enlistment in the Second Australian Imperial Force, and embarked for overseas service in July 1941. Arriving in Singapore the following month, he joined the 2/10th Field Regiment of the Australian 8th Division in Malaya.

In November 1941 Sheppard was struck down with a bout of malaria, but recovered in time to re-join his regiment before it became engaged in battle.

Following Japan’s entry into the war in December 1941, the 8th Division fought in the defence of the Malayan peninsula. However, on 15 February 1942, after weeks of fierce fighting, Singapore fell to the Japanese, and Sheppard became one of 45,000 Australian and British troops captured in the surrender.

Sheppard spent the first few months of his imprisonment at Selarang Barracks in the large prisoner-of-war camp at Changi in Singapore. In May he was drafted into “A Force”, a large workforce which left Changi for Burma. There the men formed part of a large workforce of slave labourers constructing the Burma–Thailand Railway.

Many of the prisoners on the railway were malnourished and disease was rife. Having journeyed along the tracks to Thailand, Sheppard contracted dysentery and died of his illness on 5 March 1944. He was 26 years old.

Sheppard’s body is buried in the British and Commonwealth War Cemetery at Kanchanaburi, Thailand.

His name is listed here on the Roll of Honour on my left, along with the names of some 40,000 other Australians who died serving in the Second 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 Gunner Lawrence Sheppard, and all of those Australians who gave their lives for their nation.

Dr Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section