The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (189) Private Albert Lewis, 22nd Battalion, First World War.

Places
Accession Number AWM2018.1.1.67
Collection type Film
Object type Last Post film
Physical description 16:9
Maker Australian War Memorial
Place made Australia: Australian Capital Territory, Canberra, Campbell
Date made 8 March 2018
Access Open
Conflict First World War, 1914-1918
Copyright Item copyright: © Australian War Memorial
Creative Commons License This item is licensed under CC BY-NC
Copying Provisions Copyright restrictions apply. Only personal, non-commercial, research and study use permitted. Permission of copyright holder required for any commercial use and/or reproduction.
Description

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 (189) Private Albert Lewis, 22nd Battalion, First World War.

Film order form
Speech transcript

189 Private Albert Lewis, 22nd Battalion
KIA 5 August 1916
Story delivered 8 March 2018

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Albert Lewis.

Albert Edward Lewis was born in 1896, one of six children of Lowis and Ellen Lewis of the Melbourne suburb of Northcote. Known as “Bert” to his family and friends, he attended Miller Street State School before working as a machinist in one of the many boot factories in Fitzroy. He was also actively involved in the Citizen Military Forces, parading part-time with the 55th Infantry Regiment.

Albert Lewis enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in February 1915, just a few months shy of his nineteenth birthday. After several months training at Broadmeadows Camp, he embarked for Egypt as an original member of the 22nd Battalion. Lewis landed on Gallipoli with the battalion in September, and occupied positions to the north of the Anzac beach-head in the latter stages of the campaign. With the prospect of winter looming, operations had come to a virtual standstill and remained so until the evacuation in December 1915.

Lewis returned to Egypt with his battalion and spent the following months training as the AIF prepared to embark for the fighting on the Western Front. Since Lewis had undergone telegraphy training, he was posted to B Company’s signalling section before sailing for France in March 1916. When he arrived, the battalion spent several weeks in the relatively quiet “nursery” sector outside the town of Armentières, where it learned the rigours and routine of war in the new operational theatre, before moving to the Somme in early July 1916.

By the time Lewis arrived on the Somme, the Australian 1st Division had captured the village of Pozières and held it against a series of German counter-attacks and retaliatory bombardments. Gains made by the Australians had pushed a significant bulge into the German lines, enabling them to shell the village from three sides of the battlefield. After several days of bitter fighting, Pozières had been reduced to rubble, and casualties among the 1st Division were so severe that it was relieved by the 2nd Division several days later. Entering the line for the first time on 28 July 1916, the 22nd Battalion was involved in a costly and unsuccessful attempt to capture a German position known as the O.G. lines, east of Pozières village. Lewis survived this unscathed.

The 22nd Battalion was rotated out of the line, and after several days’ rest, returned to the fighting on 5 August 1916. On that day, men from B Company were moving up to a position known as K Trench when German artillery crashed down upon them. Three men were killed in the explosion, including Private Lewis. A party tried to recover the bodies, but it too was hit by German shell-fire. Because of the risk of further casualties, a decision was made to suspend any further attempts to recover the B Company men killed in the blast.

Lewis was just 20 at the time of his death. His remains were not recovered from the Pozières battlefield until 1930, when they were exhumed from an isolated grave on the outskirts of village and reinterred at Serre Road Cemetery No. 2 at Beaumont-Hamel.

After hearing that their son’s body had been found at Pozières, Lewis’s father wrote to the Defence Department in 1931, thanking them for the news. An excerpt reads: “It has been a great consolation to us to know that our dear boy has found a permanent resting place in sacred ground after all the years have passed.” The identity disc that Lewis wore the day he died was returned to his parents, and after his body was reinterred at Serre Road Cemetery, they wrote a small epitaph to appear on his headstone: “Until the dawn”.

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

Aaron Pegram
Historian, Military History Section

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