The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (VX26960) Private Arthur Lawrence Turner, 2/22nd Battalion, 2nd 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 Craig Berelle, the story for this day was on (VX26960) Private Arthur Lawrence Turner, 2/22nd Battalion, 2nd AIF, Second World War.

VX26960 Private Arthur Lawrence Turner, 2/22nd Battalion, 2nd AIF
Presumed killed 4 February 1942
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 2 October 2016

Today we pay tribute to Private Arthur Lawrence Turner.

Born in Melbourne on 2 June 1913, Arthur Turner was the eldest of Arthur Vernon Turner’s and Mary Anne Turner’s six children. Arthur’s father passed away in 1929 and his mother in 1931. Mary Anne’s mother came to look after the children for a while, but died following a stroke, leaving the young Arthur Turner to take care of his five younger siblings by the age of 18.


Turner had a variety of jobs. He was a delivery boy for the Herald newspaper, and a turntable boy at Radio 3DB in Melbourne. He studied accountancy by correspondence and became the paymaster at the Herald.

In June 1940 Turner enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force and was posted to the 2/22nd Battalion. After months of training he embarked in Melbourne aboard HMT Neptuna, destined for Rabaul, New Britain.

There he joined other members of the 2/22nd Battalion who had begun arriving. They would later be joined by a detachment of the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles, gun crews and batteries, and a detachment of the 2/10th Field Ambulance. Their job was to protect the airfields surrounding Rabaul. Known as “Lark Force”, this small force was ill-equipped to match the strength of the Japanese invasion force, which they came to face on 23 January 1942.

Following days of aerial bombardment which had destroyed or led to the withdrawal of the handful of RAAF aircraft in New Britain, Japanese troops began landing in the early hours of 23 January. The Australian
force of approximately 1,300 faced an invasion force of over 5,300. The Australian defenders put up what resistance they could but with no air support they were forced to withdraw. Some 28 Australian soldiers died in the fighting that day. Of the survivors, 400 managed to escape New Britain and return to Australia. Those who remained, including 300 Australian civilians, were rounded up and interned as prisoners of war.

A grisly fate awaited those captured on New Britain after the fall of Rabaul. Shortly after their surrender, a group of 160 were massacred at the Tol Plantation on 4 February 1942. It is believed that Private Arthur Turner was killed during this massacre.

His name is commemorated on the Rabaul Memorial at the British and Commonwealth War Cemetery in Rabual, Papua New Guinea, which lists the names of more than 1,200 Australians who were killed in New Britain and New Ireland during the Second World War and have no known grave.

Turner’s name is also listed here on the Roll of Honour on my left, among 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 Arthur Lawrence Turner, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Dr Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section