The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of Second Lieutenant Albert George Kilpatrick, 33rd Battalion, 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 Dennis Stockman, the story for this day was on Second Lieutenant Albert George Kilpatrick, 33rd Battalion, First World War.

Second Lieutenant Albert George Kilpatrick, 33rd Battalion
KIA 12 October 1917

Story delivered 25 August 2018

Today we remember and pay tribute to Lieutenant Albert George Kilpatrick.

Albert Kilpatrick was born in 1890, the eldest son of 11 children of George and Amelia Kilpatrick of “Eastwood” near Walcha in the New South Wales northern tablelands. Known to his family and friends as “Bert”, he attended Walcha Public School and clerical school at the Post Master General’s Department before embarking on a career as a post master and telegraphist. Initially stationed at the Walcha post office, in the years before the war he worked as the relieving post master at the Gosford office.

Albert Kilpatrick enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force at Holsworthy near Sydney in September 1915. Owing to his qualifications, he applied for and was granted a commission and sailed for England as a second lieutenant with a reinforcement group for the 33rd Battalion in October 1916. Kilpatrick spent several months in the training camps on the Salisbury Plain near Wiltshire, attending a course of instruction and qualifying as a bomb throwing instructor. During the following months, he was based at the 9th Training Battalion at Weymouth where he taught fresh reinforcements from Australia how to throw grenades before they proceeded to the fighting on the Western Front. After several weeks in hospital recovering from a mild case of syphilis, Bert returned to his training unit, and then sailed for the fighting on the Western Front in August 1917.

By the time Bert arrived in France, the 33rd Battalion was recovering from heavy fighting at Messines in Belgium. It was also preparing to take part in a major British offensive that sought to break out of the so-called Ypres salient and push northwards in an effort to remove the Germans from the Belgian coastline. Fighting in what became known as the Third Battle of Ypres, the Australians fought a series of costly but successful action at Menin Road, Polygon Wood, and Broodseinde as they advanced towards Passchendaele village. Each attack was supported by massive amounts of artillery that permitted the infantry to advance towards their objectives behind the relative protection of a “creeping barrage”.

The 33rd Battalion took part in the attack that followed: the ill-fated assault on Passchendaele village. Rain had turned the low-lying area torn up by shell-fire into a quagmire, which made it difficult for the infantry to advance on their objectives. Owing to the boggy conditions, the guns could not be brought up to provide the assaulting waves with the protection they had on previous occasions. Stepping off at zero hour on the morning of 12 October, the 33rd Battalion advanced as far as Augustus Wood near the present-day site of Tyne Cot Cemetery, where their attack ultimately faltered in the face of fierce German resistance. Accurate artillery and withering machine-gun fire from German strong points inflicted a heavy toll on the 33rd Battalion. Within less than 24 hours of fighting, the battalion had suffered over 240 men killed, missing and wounded.

Among the dead was Albert Kilpatrick. Aged 27 at the time of his death, his body was never recovered from the Passchendaele battlefield. Today his name appears on the Menin Gate Memorial alongside 6,187 Australians who were killed in Belgium and have no known grave.

His name is also listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among almost 62,000 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 Second Lieutenant Albert George Kilpatrick, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Aaron Pegram
Historian, Military History Section