The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (180) Sergeant Charles Murray Storrer, 4th Australian Light Horse Regiment, 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 Alison Cray, the story for this day was on (180) Sergeant Charles Murray Storrer, 4th Australian Light Horse Regiment, AIF, First World War.

180 Sergeant Charles Murray Storrer, 4th Australian Light Horse Regiment, AIF
DOW 5 June 1915

Today we remember and pay tribute to Sergeant Charles Murray Storrer.

Charles Storrer was born in Geelong on 10 November 1894 to Henry and Margaret Storrer.

Commonly known by his middle name of “Murray”, he attended Geelong College before going on to work as a clerk for Dalgety & Company.

Storrer had a keen interest in the military, having served in the Mounted Cadets and the 29th (Port Phillip) Light Horse. He enlisted in the First Australian Imperial Force in August 1914 and was assigned to the newly raised 4th Light Horse Regiment as a sergeant.

Storrer was a well-known member of the Barwon Rowing Club, one of the oldest sporting clubs in Victoria. Two of his brothers also rowed for Barwon, and his father, who had been treasurer of the club since 1909, would go on to be president after the war. Charles joined the club in 1910 and rowed three seat in the winning Maiden Eight at the Ballarat Regatta of 1914.

Before leaving Australia in late October, he rowed with fellow members William Allen and Ralph Barnfather in the Light Horse winning eight at an inter-regimental regatta on the Yarra River.

After arriving at the training camps in Egypt, he rowed in a winning eight with Ralph Barnfather at an army regatta.

While the 4th Light Horse Regiment had been formed as the divisional cavalry regiment for the 1st Division, when the division departed to take part in the Gallipoli campaign, the light horse were left behind. Because of the terrain, it was believed that mounted troops would not be needed. However, casualties on the peninsula proved to be so severe that Light Horse were sent, without their horses, as infantry reinforcements. Storrer’s regiment landed at Anzac Cove in late May 1915 and was broken up to provide reinforcements for infantry battalions around the beachhead.

On 1 June Storrer’s squadron was attached to the 4th Battalion. Four days later it supported an attack on German Officer’s Trench. Ottoman forces began pouring shrapnel into the trenches from 5 am. A few hours into the assault, Storrer was having breakfast with his cousin, Lieutenant Murray Bourchier, and Ralph Barnfather, his rowing mate from Barwon, when a high explosive shell burst overhead. A piece of shrapnel struck Storrer on the head and he lost consciousness instantly. No one knew that he was hit for some time, as he didn’t move, just sat there with a piece of biscuit in his hand. He died some hours later without gaining consciousness and was buried on the beach that day.

A number of his Barwon friends attended his burial, including Leopold Hagger, a bugler with the 8th Battalion, who played the Last Post for him.

After the war, his remains were reinterred in Beach Cemetery at the southern point of Anzac Cover.

Sadly, the tragedy of loss was not over for the Storrer family. Charles’s brother, Captain Henry Haigh Storrer of 3 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps, was killed in France in December 1917 when his plane crashed into the brick wall of the Bailleul cemetery as he took off on an artillery patrol.

Today, Charles and Henry Storrer, and their cousin Sister Jessie Pringle Storrer – who trained as a nurse at Geelong Hospital before enlisting in the Australian Army Nursing Service, and serving in India, Rangoon, Burma, and West Bengal – are remembered through the naming of Storrer Street in East Geelong.

Charles Storerr’s 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 Sergeant Charles Murray Storrer, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Duncan Beard
Editor, Military History Section