The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of Caption John Harry Fletcher, 24th Battalion, AIF, First World War and Captain John Austin Mahony, 24th Battalion, AIF

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 Caption John Harry Fletcher, 24th Battalion, AIF, First World War and Captain John Austin Mahony, 24th Battalion, AIF.

Captain John Austin Mahony, 24th Battalion, AIF
DOW 9 October 1918
Caption John Harry Fletcher, 24th Battalion, AIF
DOD 5 October 1918

Today we remember and pay tribute to Captain John Austin Mahony and Captain John Harry Fletcher.

John Mahony, known by his middle name Austin, was born in 1893, the second son of John and Mary Ann Mahony of Hansonville, Victoria. His father was a dairy farmer in the district before working as an engineer in local dairies and woollen mills.

Mahony was one of the first students at the Wangaratta Agricultural High School, his teacher later saying that Mahony was “one of the brainiest and steadiest students that ever attended the high school”. He passed his junior examination with honours less than 18 months after starting school, and topped the state in French.

Mahony was also an excellent athlete, and a prominent member of the Wangaratta Football Club. In March 1911 he was appointed a junior teacher at the state school in Wangaratta, but although he “showed unusual enthusiasm in his work”, he left to enter the public service, eventually taking a position in the Closer Settlement and Immigration Branch of the Lands Department.

Mahony enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force with a good friend Harry Fletcher. Fletcher was the son of a teacher and lay preacher and grew up in Bendigo. He had gone to Melbourne to attend teachers’ training college, and met Mahony while staying in the same boarding house. Fletcher went on to teach in Bendigo, Melbourne and Gippsland.

The two friends remained close, and “vowing to be comrades through thick and thin unto the death,” they enlisted together in Melbourne on 3 March 1915. The two were posted to the 24th Battalion and left Australia together on board the troopship Euripides in May 1915.

The pair were first sent to Egypt, where they continued training in the desert. Both were devoutly Christian, but each Sunday morning Mahony would go to the Catholic church parade, and Fletcher to the Methodist, and they would join back up afterwards and spend the afternoon together.

In August 1915 Private Mahony wrote to Australia saying they were “busy sharpening their bayonets and hardening their muscles in readiness for the unspeakable Turk, whom they hoped to meet soon.” The 24th Battalion was not put ashore at Gallipoli until early September.

Although they missed the major offensives, Mahony wrote home of some “narrow escapes”, including time under Turkish bombardments. He wrote “the worst I suffered was being nearly blinded and choked with dust and smoke … the fumes of the bursting shells is terrible.” They left Gallipoli with the evacuation at the end of the year, and after a further period of training in Egypt, arrived in France to fight on the Western Front.

Mahony had been receiving regular promotion as a non-commissioned officer, and shortly after the 24th Battalion’s first engagement on the Somme at Pozieres, he received his commission as a second lieutenant. A little over a week later Mahony was put in charge of a working party digging a new trench only a few metres from the enemy at Mouquet Farm.

Mahony heard that there was a party of the 21st Battalion isolated in the farm itself, and took his party into Mouquet Farm, bombing three German dugouts on the way, and establishing contact with the isolated parties. With the front line sorted, Lieutenant Mahony and his party returned to work. For his “gallantry and initiative”, Mahony was awarded the Military Cross.

He later told his sister that he had been “overwhelmed … with letters of congratulation on my getting my commission, also the M.C. People I have never heard from since I came away, and also people I hardly know have all written to me.”

Shortly afterwards, Mahony was sent to machine-gun school. He wrote to his parents to say “every evening I see the English Channel and often wish I was on the others side of it … how I am looking forward to seeing England, especially as I am so close to it.”

Before 1916 was over, he was able to visit both England and Ireland, much to his delight. Later the following year, he sprained his ankle playing football and spent further time in London in hospital.

Mahony proved an excellent soldier, and he attended a variety of schools as well as served as instructor at bayonet and bombing schools. In 1918 he was promoted to captain, and was given command of the company he left Australia with, A Company of the 24th Battalion.

Within days he led his company in an attack at Mericourt, and was the first to report reaching his objective. He wrote, “I could not help feeling a little proud of myself, although of course all the credit was due to the boys of the Company.”

Through all his time in the war, Mahony remained close friends with Fletcher. Fletcher had also been promoted and was a captain in charge of B Company in 1918. They mentioned each other so often in their letters home, that “Austin Mahony was as well known in Eaglehawk and Harry Fleming at Hansonville as though, instead of being in different parts of Victoria, their homes were next door.”

On 5 October 1918, the 24th Battalion took part in what would become the last Australian action of the First World War.

Captains Mahony and Fletcher, who spent the night before singing duets in a dugout with other officers, led their respective companies in the attack. Both advanced towards the village of Montbrehain.

Mahony’s men fought their way through the village, and he began to look to set up a series of posts. As he stood in full view, a German machine-gun bullet hit him in the temple. It was almost spent, and did not kill Mahony instantly. He died several days later at a casualty clearing station.

Captain Harry Fletcher did not survive the battle either. After more than three years of war with his best mate, he was killed on the battlefield, probably within an hour of Captain Mahony being hit. The families put memorial notices to both men for many years.

Major Elwood wrote to the Mahony family to express his sympathy at the loss of their son. He wrote, “It would be hard to do justice to the respect, effect and confidence he commanded from all ranks. In the hour of danger he was a tower of strength; in the darkest hour his courage was an inspiration.

Men looked to him with childlike faith, and hung on his actions and his words. What a magnificent man he was, and what a true comrade! We shall not see his like again.”

John Austin Mahony is buried in Tincourt New British Cemetery under the words “He wore the white rose of a blameless life: R.I.P.” He was 25 years old.
John Harry Fletcher was buried in Calvaire Cemetery at Montbrehain. He was also 25 years old.

Their names are 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 Captain John Austin Mahony and Captain John Harry Fletcher, who gave their lives for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Meleah Hampton
Historian, Military History Section