The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (1804) Private Ernie Coyle, 33rd 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 Charis May, the story for this day was on (1804) Private Ernie Coyle, 33rd Battalion, AIF, First World War.

1804 Private Ernie Coyle, 33rd Battalion, AIF
DOD 25 September 1916
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 4 January 2017

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Ernie Coyle.

Ernie Coyle was born in 1891 to Dominick and Charlotte Coyle. His father ran the hotel at Yamba for some years before the family moved to Dorrigo in New South Wales. He had a large number of siblings, but in 1896 his seven-year-old brother Patrick drowned in the Clarence River. In 1909 his only other brother, Joe, left Dorrigo for a job in Grafton. Ernie stayed in Dorrigo, and a year later narrowly avoided being in a house fire that left his mother badly burned. He was known in Dorrigo as “a steady, upright and smart young man”, and went on to work as a barman at the Imperial Hotel in Moree.

After the outbreak of war in August 1914 Coyle made a number of attempts to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force but was turned down as medically unfit because of his poor eyesight. Joe Coyle had also tried to enlist on a number of occasions, and was accepted in November 1915. In March 1916 Ernie Coyle was finally successful and went into camp.

In April 1916 Corporal Joe Coyle went on leave from his posting as a clerk at Liverpool Camp. On the train on his way back, he fell off the bogie he was sitting on and was crushed beneath the train. He died in hospital shortly afterwards, aged 32.

Private Ernie Coyle continued training at Rutherford Camp, interrupted by a serious bout of bronchitis. He left Sydney in September 1916 on board the troopship Port Sydney.

However, Coyle never made it to the battlefields of Europe. On 25 September he died at sea of a previously undiagnosed heart condition. He was buried at sea shortly afterwards.

The local newspaper lamented that “Mr and Mrs D. Coyle had only the two sons, and it is indeed sad that they should be robbed of both of them.” Both had been prepared to fight, but neither had reached the battlefield. Ernie Coyle was almost 24 years old.

Ernie Coyle’s 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.

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

Dr Meleah Hampton
Historian, Military History Section