The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (VX62289) Private Victor Lawrence Gale, 2/10th Ordnance Workshops, Australian Army Ordnance Corps, 8th Division, 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 Richard Cruise, the story for this day was on (VX62289) Private Victor Lawrence Gale, 2/10th Ordnance Workshops, Australian Army Ordnance Corps, 8th Division, AIF, Second World War.

VX62289 Private Victor Lawrence Gale, 2/10th Ordnance Workshops, Australian Army Ordnance Corps, 8th Division, AIF
Executed 2 September 1942
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 9 December 2015

Today we remember and pay tribute to Victor Lawrence Gale.

The son of Arthur and Annie Gale, Victor Gale was born in Toronto, New South Wales, on 13 February 1919. He enlisted in Melbourne for the Second Australian Imperial Force in August 1941, and was posted to the Australian Army Ordnance Corps. In December 1941 he was sent to join the 8th Division in Malaya, which was then fighting a fierce campaign against Japanese forces on the Malayan peninsula.

In early February the Japanese landed on Singapore, and after weeks of fierce fighting Singapore fell to the Japanese on 15 February. Gale became one of 45,000 Australian and British troops captured in the surrender.

In May 1942 Gale and his friend Corporal Rodney Breavington escaped from the prisoner-of-war camp at Bukit Timar in central Singapore. They managed to obtain a small rowing boat and had rowed a distance of 200 miles before being recaptured. By that stage the men were starving and suffering from disease, and they spent some time recuperating in hospital before being returned to Changi, Singapore, in July.

On 2 September Breavington and Gale were two of four prisoners taken to Changi Beach to face a firing squad as punishment for attempts to escape. The other two men were British soldiers Private Harold Waters of the East Surrey Regiment and Private Eric Fletcher of the Royal Army Ordinance Corps. The execution was carried out in front of senior Australian and British officers, who later wrote witness testimonies.

Facing the firing squad, Breavington addressed the Japanese officers, proclaiming that he, the older and higher ranked man, had ordered Gale to escape with him and that Gale had only been following orders. “Shoot me”, he said, “and let the others go”. The appeal fell on deaf ears. The four shook hands, and as the firing squad knelt the British and Australian officers saluted. The four men each returned the salute. A Japanese officer then offered Breavington a blindfold. Breavington waved it away and the other three did likewise.

The order was given to fire, but only one of the men was killed in the first volley. Breavington, hit in the arm, is reported to have yelled “For God’s sake shoot me through the heart!” Several more volleys were then fired until all four men were dead.

Their bodies were buried in shallow graves before being reinterred later at the Kranji Commonwealth War Cemetery.

After the war the responsible Japanese officer was tried and found guilty of the murder of the four Australian and British soldiers. He was shot by firing squad on the same piece of ground on Changi Beach in April 1946.

In 2011 Victor Gale was posthumously awarded the Commendation for Gallantry. His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, among approximately 40,000 other Australians who died serving in the Second 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 Victor Lawrence Gale, and all of those Australians – as well as our Allies and brothers in arms – who gave their lives in the hope of a better world.

Dr Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section