The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (3025) Corporal Ernest Edward Bernard, 5th Light Trench Mortar Battery, 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 Craig Berelle, the story for this day was on (3025) Corporal Ernest Edward Bernard, 5th Light Trench Mortar Battery, First World War.

3025 Corporal Ernest Edward Bernard, 5th Light Trench Mortar Battery
KIA 28 July 1916

Story delivered 30 July 2017

Today we remember and pay tribute to Corporal Ernest Bernart.

Ernest Bernard was born in 1887, one of eight children of Louis and Sarah Bernard of Carrington near Newcastle in New South Wales. Ernest’s father, Louis, worked on the railways, and the family spent some time living in Goulburn. Ernest Bernard went to school nearby and afterwards joined his brothers in the pre-war Royal Australian Artillery. He was a bandsman with the garrison company in Sydney before being medically discharged in 1910. He married Marjorie Witten three years later, and on the eve of the First World War was working as a tram conductor.

Bernard enlisted at Victoria Barracks in May 1915, but deserted camp at Moore Park three months later following orders that he be transferred from the infantry to a Special Railway and Tramway Company. The military authorities put out a warrant for his arrest, but by the time it was issued, he had already reenlisted at the Depot Camp at Agricultural Park, forming part of a reinforcement group for the 17th Battalion that sailed for Egypt in December 1915. The Gallipoli campaign had ended by the time Bernard arrived, however, and the following months were spent training as the AIF underwent a major restructure in preparation for its departure for the Western Front. As part of this restructure, Bernard was promoted to corporal and transferred to the newly-formed 5th Light Trench Mortar Battery, which sailed for France in March 1916.

Now mustered as a mortarman, Bernard formed part of a three-man gun team that operated the battery’s eight 3-inch Stokes mortars – a new and surprisingly simple weapon that was integrated into infantry brigades and which provided devastatingly accurate fire support from front-line positions. Having gone into the trenches for the first time in the relatively quiet Nursery Sector near the town of Armentières, Bernard survived the German raid against the 5th Brigade in the Bridoux Salient and which resulted in two of the battery’s Stokes mortars being lost to the enemy. Despite this, the 5th Light Trench Mortar Battery fired on German machine-gun positions and sniper loopholes, as well as supporting an Australian trench raid before, being transferred to the Somme in July 1916.

The 2nd Division fought its first major action on the Western Front at Pozières. On the night of 27 July 1916, it made a costly and unsuccessful attack against a formidable German stronghold east of the village, resulting in over 2,000 casualties. Firing in support of the infantry were the gunners of the 5th Light Trench Mortar Battery, who were subjected to German shellfire during the assault and afterwards. At some point during the fighting, Bernard was killed.

Aged 30 at the time of his death, his body was never recovered from the battlefield. Today he is commemorated on the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, alongside 10,737 Australians killed fighting in France with no known grave.

His name is also 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 Corporal Ernest Bernard, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Aaron Pegram
Historian, Military History Section