The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (6118) Private Ernest Millington Nixon, 19th Battalion, 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 Gerard pratt, the story for this day was on (6118) Private Ernest Millington Nixon, 19th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

6118 Private Ernest Millington Nixon, 19th Battalion, AIF
KIA 3 May 1917
Story delivered 3 December 2018

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Ernest Millington Nixon.

Popularly known as “Ernie”, Ernest Nixon was born on 9 May 1887 to David and Ada Nixon. The year he was born his father took up land between Temora and Barmedman; land that he would farm for the rest of his life. Young Ernest attended the Reefton Public School, and went on to work as a farmer on the family property, Hazelwood, near Reefton.

Ernest Nixon tried to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force in August 1915, but was turned down as medically unfit because of an untreated hernia. He tried again in July 1916 and, probably having had the hernia treated, was accepted as fit for active service. He underwent a period of training in Australia before leaving Sydney in October 1916 on board the troopship Ascanius with reinforcements to the 19th Battalion.

Private Nixon spent the bitterly cold winter of 1916 and 1917 training on the Salisbury Plain, before being sent to France to join the 19th Battalion on the Western Front in mid-March 1917. Six weeks later the battalion attacked German positions near the French village of Bullecourt. At 3.45 am on 3 May, the 19th Battalion, along with other Australian and British battalions, attacked, and, meeting determined opposition, quickly faltered. The 19th Battalion suffered so many casualties among its officers and non-commissioned officers in the early stages of the attack that its headquarters was unable to obtain a clear idea of what had happened. More than 350 men of the 564 members of the 19th Battalion that took part in the attack were killed, wounded, or missing by the end of the day, many of them prisoners of war.

One of those missing was Private Ernest Nixon. Efforts to trace him as a prisoner of war in Germany failed, and for a while nobody knew what had happened to him. Finally, in August, Private Donald Rial, who was in hospital in Birmingham, shed some light on the fate of Private Nixon. According to Rial, Nixon had been hit by the blast from a high explosive shell, which had been fatal. In December 1917 a court of enquiry determined that Private Ernest Millington Nixon had indeed been killed in action at the second battle of Bullecourt.

After the war the Graves Registration Unit worked to clear the battlefield of isolated graves, consolidating and building the many cemeteries that dot the fields of France and Belgium today. It seems that in the confusion following the battle, Private Nixon was buried, and in 1921 the Graves Registration Unit found the forgotten grave and was able to identify the body.

Today Ernest Nixon is buried in the Queant Road Cemetery, Buissy, under the words “to live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.” He died just days before his 30th birthday.
His name is 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 Private Ernest Millington Nixon who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Meleah Hampton
Historian, Military History Section