The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (VX144269) Private John Humphry Holbrook, 14th/32nd Battalion, Second World War.

Place Oceania: Pacific Islands, Bismarck Archipelago, New Britain, Gazelle Peninsula
Accession Number AWM2016.2.90
Collection type Film
Object type Last Post film
Physical description 16:9
Maker Australian War Memorial
Place made Australia: Australian Capital Territory, Canberra, Campbell
Date made 30 March 2016
Access Open
Conflict Second World War, 1939-1945
Copyright Item copyright: © Australian War Memorial
Creative Commons License This item is licensed under CC BY-NC
Copying Provisions Copyright restrictions apply. Only personal, non-commercial, research and study use permitted. Permission of copyright holder required for any commercial use and/or reproduction.
Description

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 (VX144269) Private John Humphry Holbrook, 14th/32nd Battalion, Second World War.

Film order form
Speech transcript

VX144269 Private John Humphry Holbrook, 14th/32nd Battalion
KIA 16 March 1945
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 30 March 2016

This month marks the 70th anniversary of the 6th Brigade’s capture of Bacon Hill in New Britain in 1945. From October 1944 to August 1945 Australian forces in New Britain conducted a successful campaign to contain a far larger Japanese force on Rabaul and the Gazelle Peninsula. Although they received little fanfare, the men of the Australian 5th Division conducted this campaign with great skill and minimal casualties, bottling up some 93,000 Japanese. In doing so 74 of the Australians died, and 140 were wounded. Today we remember one of those Australians killed on New Britain, Private John Humphry Holbrook.

John Allen Holbrook was born on 1 May 1923 in Melbourne, the son of Francis and Alma. The family lived in Caulfield. Known as “Puss”, John obtained a junior technical certificate from secondary school and subsequently worked as a clerk. Two months before the start of the war in the Pacific, the 18 year old was mobilised for service in the Militia. His first full day in the military began in late December 1941, and after a month of training he was posted to the Militia’s 14th Battalion.

When Holbrook marched into his unit it was part of the force performing defensive duties around Port Phillip Bay. The 14th Battalion was sent to the Bellarine Peninsula and spread out between Grovedale and Mt Duneed. In August the battalion moved to Western Australia, where it joined the 6th Brigade around Geraldton. Next month the 14th and 32nd Battalions merged to become the 14th/32nd Battalion.

In February 1943 the 14th/32nd Battalion returned to the east for amphibious landing and jungle warfare training on the Atherton Tablelands in Queensland. In July the battalion embarked for the
islands, and spent more than a year conducting garrison duties and long-range coastal patrols along Papua’s north coast.

In late 1944 the 14th/32nd Battalion and the rest of the 6th Brigade, as part of the Militia’s 5th Division, were given the task of relieving the Americans garrisoning New Britain. The division was to concentrate on confining the much larger Japanese force to Rabaul and the Gazelle Peninsula.

Towards the end of 1944 the 6th Brigade concentrated at Jacquinot Bay, from where it pushed up the coast by barge and on foot. By the following March the brigade’s lead battalion had reached a feature dubbed “Bacon Hill”, the main Japanese defensive line in the Waitavalo–Tol Plantation area and the scene of a Japanese massacre of Australians earlier in the war.

The Japanese were well-entrenched on Bacon Hill but it was nevertheless captured by the 14th/32nd Battalion, as part of an attack by the 6th Brigade, on 18 March. This was the final major engagement of the New Britain campaign and the battalion’s first and last battle. The Australians established a line across the neck of the Gazelle Peninsula, which they held and patrolled for the rest of the war.

In five days of fighting at Bacon Hill the 14th/32nd Battalion suffered 57 killed and wounded. This included Private John Holbrook, who was killed in action on 16 March. He was 21 years old.

His mother later wrote the following in his memory:
Vale
In loving memory of Puss and those that fell in New Britain
He sleeps beside his comrades in a shallow grave unknown
His name is written in words of love in the hearts he’d loved and known
May the heavenly wind blow softly on the sweet and hallowed spot
Tho’s the sea divided us from their graves they will never be forgotten.

He is buried in the Rabaul (Bita Paka) War Cemetery on New Britain. His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, along with some 40,000 Australians killed 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 John Humphry Holbrook, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Dr Karl James
Historian, Military History Section

  • Video of The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (VX144269) Private John Humphry Holbrook, 14th/32nd Battalion, Second World War. (video)