The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (PM2316) Able Seaman Arthur Thomas Robert Ladlow, HMAS Goorangai Second World War.

Places
Accession Number AWM2019.1.1.16
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 16 January 2019
Access Open
Conflict Second World War, 1939-1945
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 Troy Clayton, the story for this day was on, (PM2316) Able Seaman Arthur Thomas Robert Ladlow, HMAS Goorangai Second World War.

Film order form
Speech transcript

PM2316 Able Seaman Arthur Thomas Robert Ladlow, HMAS Goorangai
Killed in accident, 20 November 1940

Today we remember and pay tribute to Able Seaman Arthur Thomas Robert Ladlow.

Arthur Ladlow was born on 20 October 1920 in Bendigo, Victoria, to Arthur and Mary Ladlow.

When war broke out in 1939, he was working as a labourer on the Victorian Railways. He was also a member of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve, and reported for active duty in June 1940.

Ladlow was posted to the HMAS Goorangai. This vessel had been a fishing trawler in peacetime, but when the war started she was taken over by the Navy Board and fitted out for minesweeping.

In early November 1940 a British ship and an American freighter were lost in quick succession in Bass Strait to German minelaying operations. HMAS Goorangai was one of a number of minesweepers sent to locate and destroy the mine fields. Following that operation the minesweeper returned to Queenscliff. But a rising storm sent the ship to Portsea, which was a safer harbour.

As the Goorangai passed through the dangerous rip at the mouth of Port Philip Bay in the darkness, she was hit by an outbound merchant ship and torn almost in halves. A crewman on the ship that hit the Goorangai reported, “In the short time it took me to run along the promenade deck to the rail by the bridge the Goorangai had disappeared. There was not a sound but the crash of water.” In that short moment in between, some eyewitnesses heard men calling for help, but could do little for them. Floatation devices were thrown out into the darkness, and lifeboats deployed immediately, but, despite a long search, no survivors or bodies were found. The minesweeper had sunk almost immediately with all hands still on board.

Over the following weeks diving operations recovered the bodies of five of the crew. The remaining 19, including Arthur Ladlow, were never recovered, and the wreck of the minesweeper was blown up to clear the channel.
It was one month after Arthur Ladlow’s twentieth birthday.

The names of Ladlow and all of the crew of HMAS Goorangai are listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, along with more than 40,000 others from 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 Able Seaman Arthur Thomas Robert Ladlow, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Meleah Hampton
Historian, Military History Section

  • Video of The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (PM2316) Able Seaman Arthur Thomas Robert Ladlow, HMAS Goorangai Second World War. (video)