The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (2632) Private Jack Stanley Dale, 58th 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 Mathew Rose, the story for this day was on (2632) Private Jack Stanley Dale, 58th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

2632, Private Jack Stanley Dale, 58th Battalion, AIF
KIA: 27 September, 1917
Photograph: DA16445A

Story delivered 19 October 2017

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Jack Stanley Dale.

Jack Dale was born in April 1891 in Castlemaine, Victoria, the 11th of 12 children of John and Eliza Dale. When Jack Dale was two months old, his father, a publican in Castlemaine, took his own life.

Dale grew up in Castlemaine and went to school there. In 1910, at the age of 19, he married Lily May Faull. The couple moved to Auburn, an inner suburb of Melbourne, where Dale found work labouring. In 1913 a daughter, Beatrice, was born.

After the outbreak of the First World War, Dale enlisted for service in the AIF in Melbourne on 4 July 1916. After his initial training at Broadmeadows, he was allotted to the 6th reinforcements to the 58th Battalion.
Dale embarked from Melbourne on 2 October aboard the transport ship Nestor. After disembarking, he spent a month training in England before sailing to France at the end of December.

After two months at the notorious Etaples depot, Dale was sent forward to join the 58th Battalion in support trenches near Delville Wood. In late March 1917, the battalion was involved in the battle which saw Lagnicourt captured by the Australian 2nd Division. Dale was wounded in the arm by a shell splinter during the day and was evacuated.

He rejoined the 58th Battalion in mid-April, and the following month took part in the battalion’s defensive action at Bullecourt in the latter stages of the battle. In June Dale went absent without leave for two days,
for which he was awarded seven days’ field punishment number two, and fined 10 days’ pay.

The 58th Battalion’s next major action was at Polygon Wood. On 26 September, the battalion entered the front line under heavy German shellfire.

The following morning, Dale and some of his comrades were resting at Black Watch Corner when a German high explosive shell landed behind him. The explosion hurled him 100 yards out of the trench, killing him instantly.
He was 26 years old.

Dale’s body was recovered and buried, but his grave was lost in the immediate fighting. After the war, his body was located by a graves registration team and re-interred in Tyne Cot Cemetery.
His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on your left, with around 60,000 others from 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 Jack Stanley Dale, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Michael Kelly
Historian, Military History Section