The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (5476) Gunner William Charles Meldrum, 4th Medium Trench Mortar Battery, 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 Josie Dunham, the story for this day was on (5476) Gunner William Charles Meldrum, 4th Medium Trench Mortar Battery, AIF, First World War.

5476 Gunner William Charles Meldrum, 4th Medium Trench Mortar Battery
KIA 3 May 1917

Story delivered 14 June 2017

Today we remember and pay tribute to Gunner William Charles Meldrum.

William Meldrum was born in Tumbarumba, New South Wales, around 1889, the third son of James and Ellen Meldrum. His father was head teacher at the local public school, but around the time of William’s birth James Meldrum contracted tuberculosis and, despite moving to a warmer climate in Urana, died of illness in 1902.

William was educated at the Fort Street School in Sydney, and went on to become a motor mechanic. He became particularly well-known in the Queanbeyan and Gunning districts, probably through working there.

William Meldrum enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in August 1915. He was posted to the artillery and underwent a period of training in Australia before leaving for active service overseas the following October. He was first sent to Egypt to continue his training. Nearly two months after his arrival the rest of the AIF returned from Gallipoli following the evacuation.

Gunner Meldrum arrived in France to fight on the Western Front in mid-June 1916. Shortly after his arrival he was transferred to the 4th Medium Trench Mortar Battery. These lighter forms of artillery, with their high-angle trajectories, were usually situated reasonably close to the front line, and regularly came under threat from enemy shellfire.

Over the next few months the battery was attached to the 4th Australian Division and played a small role in the fighting around the French village of Pozières, remaining close to the front line throughout the bitterly cold winter of 1916 to 1917.

In early May 1917 the 4th Medium Trench Mortar Battery prepared to support an attack near the French village of Bullecourt. The men sorted out gun stores and prepared their ammunition for the attack, at the same time working on a nearby embankment to try to improve the small amount of defence it offered their position.

At around 3:50 am on 3 May 1917 the 4th Medium Trench Mortar Battery’s position came under German shell-fire. Half an hour later a shell scored a near-direct hit on the ammunition stores which were primed for action, causing a massive explosion. Gunner Gould of the trench mortars survived the blast, and later reported that “only about 20 out of about 100 men came out alive”. A large number of Australian and British soldiers were killed in the blast; none could be identified from their remains. Gunner William Meldrum was one of those men.

He was 28 years old.

Lieutenant Charles Peel had the unenviable task of writing a large number of letters to relatives of the dead. He wrote to Mrs Ellen Meldrum, saying that her son “fell gloriously in a successful attack on the Hindenburg Line, and that his loss was paid for at the rate of three Hun lives to one”. The family never seemed to have a clear idea of the nature of William’s death. In 1923, when planning a trip to France, William’s brother requested the details of his grave. Gunner William Meldrum had been so badly wounded in the blast that his body could not be identified, much less buried.

Lieutenant Peel described Meldrum as “a fine and typical Australian – patient and determined, both in his battle and at his work … I know that we will feel his loss in the battery almost as keenly as you will yourself.”

Today William Meldrum is commemorated on the memorial to the missing at Villers-Bretonneux.

His 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 Gunner William Charles Meldrum, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Meleah Hampton
Historian, Military History Section