The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (3428) Private Gordon Parsons, 51st 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 Richard Cruise, the story for this day was on (3428) Private Gordon Parsons, 51st Battalion, AIF, First World War.

3428 Private Gordon Parsons, 51st Battalion, AIF
KIA 5 April 1918
Photograph: E00824

Story delivered 29 November 2016

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Gordon Archibald Ian Parsons, who was killed while serving in the First World War.

Gordon Parsons was born in 1894. He was the youngest of four children of Henry and Charlotte Parsons of east Perth in Western Australia. He attended North Perth State School, after which he completed an apprenticeship as a hairdresser. He later became a fireman, stationed at Perth Central Station, and was actively involved in the East Perth Football Club before enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force in October 1916.

Parsons trained at Blackboy Hill camp before embarking for the training camps in England with a reinforcement group for the 51st Battalion in January 1917. His older brother Hamilton was taken prisoner at Bullecourt the following April, and was one of only a few Australian prisoners to make a successful escape. Gordon would have heard the news of his brother’s escape just a few weeks before embarking for France, where he joined the 51st Battalion in the trenches near Ploegsteert in July 1917.

By mid-1917 the focus of British operations had shifted north into Belgium in preparation for a major offensive to break out of the Ypres Salient. The purpose of the operation was to push back the Germans from the Belgian coastline and capture the submarine pens threatening shipping in the English Channel. The 51st Battalion was involved in the subsequent fighting at Polygon Wood on 26 September 1917. The Australian official war photographer Frank Hurley visited the Australian positions at nearby Zonnebeke, where he photographed men of the 51st Battalion in the German trenches they had captured two days earlier. This photograph is displayed today beside the Pool of Reflection. Among the men depicted is Gordon Parsons, who can be seen “chatting” his uniform and equipment for lice.

Parsons remained in Belgium until March 1918, when the Australians were rushed south to defend the city of Amiens during the German Spring Offensive. Russia’s withdrawal from the war had allowed the German army to transfer more than a million troops to the fighting in the west, where they ultimately broke through Allied lines in an effort to split the British and French armies along the Somme River. The 51st Battalion took up defensive positions overlooking the railway embankment at Dernancourt, which for most of the war had been far behind British lines.

On the morning of 5 April 1918 the AIF endured its heaviest attack on the Western Front. German troops overran the railway embankment, but their attack was checked by troops of the 51st Battalion, who defended the heights above Dernancourt village. The Australians were successful, but at a cost, with 61 men of the 51st Battalion becoming casualties. Among the dead was Gordon Parsons. He was buried in an orchard at Laviéville and was later reinterred at Senlis-le-Sec. He was 25 years old.

Those who knew Parsons remembered him as “athletic, courageous and resourceful”, “a good citizen, a clean sport, and brave soldier”. He was sorely missed by his family and friends, and his grieving mother wrote the epitaph appearing on his headstone: “God’s Will Be Done”.

Gordon Parsons’ name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among more than 60,000 Australians who died while serving in the First World War. Hi photograph is displayed beside the Pool of Reflection, standing in the foreground with other members of his battalion.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Private Gordon Parsons, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Aaron Pegram
Historian, Military History Section