The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (Q273563) Sapper Stanley Robert Morphy, 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers, Second 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 Richard Cruise, the story for this day was on (Q273563) Sapper Stanley Robert Morphy, 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers, Second World War.

Q273563 Sapper Stanley Robert Morphy, 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers
Killed in training accident 21 May 1945

Story delivered 27 December 2017

Today we pay tribute to Sapper Stanley Robert Morphy.

Stanley Morphy was born on 4 January 1927, the youngest of three children of Wilfred and Elizabeth Craig Morphy of Charters Towers.

Located 130 kilometres inland from Townsville in Queensland, Charters Towers was a gold rush town. During the boom years it hosted its own stock exchange and was Queensland’s largest city outside of Brisbane. During this time, the town was affectionately known as “the World” because anything a person desired could be found here, and there was no reason to travel elsewhere. But by the middle of the twentieth century gold mining had become uneconomic, and the town fell on hard times.

After attending Charters Towers State High School, Morphy worked as a casual labourer, taking odd jobs where he could find them. By the time of his mobilisation and enlistment in the militia on 20 February 1945, he was unemployed. First posted to a training battalion, Morphy had some early disciplinary trouble as he adapted to army life. In early May 1945 he was posted to the 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers, at the large Australian Army training base at Kapooka.

On the afternoon of 21 May 1945, two groups of men crowded into a dugout for a routine demolition training exercise on the preparation of hand charges: one group of 22 trainees and 2 instructors, and a smaller squad of three men and an instructor. Inside the dugout were 110 pounds of explosives for the training exercise. In circumstances that remain unknown to this day, the explosives ignited. In the explosion, 24 men were killed instantly, two died of injuries shortly afterwards, and two more were severely injured.

Sapper Stanley Morphy was killed in the accident. He was 18 years old.

A funeral was held for the men in Wagga Wagga on 24 May. Thousands of people lined the route of the funeral parade as 26 flag-draped coffins were carried by four army trucks. The cortege included over 100 military vehicles carrying members of the Army and Air Force. The dead were buried in the Wagga Wagga War Cemetery.

Stanley Morphy’s name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, among almost 40,000 Australians who died while serving in the Second World War.

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

Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section