The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of Lieutenant William Storer, 12th Light 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 Chris Widenbar, the story for this day was on Lieutenant William Storer, 12th Light Trench Mortar Battery, AIF, First World War.

Lieutenant William Storer, 12th Light Trench Mortar Battery, AIF
KIA 21 February 1917

Story delivered 22 December 2017

Today we remember and pay tribute to Lieutenant William Edgar Harry Storer.

William Storer was born in 1892, the first of six children born to William and Alice Storer of the Sydney suburb of Leichhardt. After attending Leichhardt State School, William completed an apprenticeship and worked as an engineer at the Mauri Brothers & Thompson Engineering Works in Sydney, which grew cork and manufactured filters and crowners for cordial and carbonated water. William also paraded with the senior cadets in Leichhardt, holding a commission as a lieutenant in B Company, 31st Cadet Battalion.

Storer enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in July 1915. After five months training at Liverpool Military Camp, he embarked for Egypt with a reinforcement group for the 13th Battalion. Due to his time in the senior cadets, William applied for and was given a commission, and so sailed as a newly-minted second lieutenant. The Gallipoli campaign had ended by the time Storer arrived in Egypt. He spent the following months training as the AIF expanded and restructured in preparation for the Western Front. As part of the “doubling up” of the AIF, William was first transferred to the 4th Pioneer Battalion, and then moved to the 45th Battalion before sailing for France in June 1916.

When Storer arrived in France, the Australians were occupying positions near the town of Armentières on the Franco-Belgian border. They patrolled no man’s land at night and frequently raided the German trenches. In mid-July, troops of the 45th Battalion moved south to the Somme and participated in the bloody fighting at Pozières. They fought their first major action on 7 August when German troops counter-attacked near a position known as the Windmill.

When the battalion was relieved, Storer was promoted to lieutenant. When the 4th Division was sent to rest in Belgium several weeks later,
he was transferred to the 12th Light Trench Mortar Battery – where he most likely became a battery commander for two 3-inch Stokes mortars and their crews. In this capacity, Storer and the men under his command would have dropped mortar rounds on the German positions, dealing with observation posts, sniper loopholes, machine-gun nests, and cutting wire for Australian trench raids.

The 4th Division returned to the Somme in November 1916, and took up positions in the Flers-Gueudecourt sector, holding them during the coldest European winter in 40 years. The fighting had almost come to a standstill, but the troops were still subjected to bombardments from artillery and trench mortars.

In February 1917, as the snow began to melt and the ground hardened, raids were conducted to sure up positions before fighting resumed. One of these was the 4th Division’s attack on a position known as Stormy Trench. The 12th Light Trench Mortar Battery supported the 45th Battalion in its attack on Stormy Trench on 21 February 1917. Forced back by stubborn German resistance and then subjected to a bombardment that inflicted a heavy toll, when the fighting was done William Storer could not be accounted for. It is believed he was among those killed by the devastating bombardment.

Aged 24 at the time of his death, Storer was given a battlefield burial and was later reinterred at the Bancourt British Cemetery. Devastated by the loss of their brother, William’s siblings inserted the following epitaph in the newspaper:
Somewhere in France they have laid him,
A soldier so young and brave;
Far from the land of wattle,
He sleeps in a hero’s grave.

Sadly, this was not the only loss endured by the Storer family during the war years. William’s younger brother, Jack, was killed fighting in the last Australian action of the war at Montbrehain in October 1918.
William Storer is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among almost 62,000 Australians who died while serving in the First World War. His photograph is displayed beside the Pool of Reflection.

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

Aaron Pegram
Historian, Military History Section