The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (6568) Private Thomas Rogers Jones, 18th Australian Infantry 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 (6568) Private Thomas Rogers Jones, 18th Australian Infantry Battalion, AIF, First World War.

6568 Private Thomas Rogers Jones, 18th Australian Infantry Battalion, AIF
KIA 9 April 1918

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Thomas Rogers Jones.

Thomas Jones was born to John and Louisa Jones in New Brighton, Wales, in December 1883. Two years after his birth, his parents emigrated to Australia, eventually settling in the Newcastle suburb of Adamstown. Jones attended school in Adamstown, and worked as a book-keeper after leaving school. When the First World War broke out in 1914, he was working as a boilermaker’s assistant.

In January 1917, Jones decided to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force. He had already undertaken some military training as a cadet. In February, he embarked at Sydney on the transport ship Wiltshire, arriving in England in early April. He completed his training at the British army camps on the Salisbury Plain. While there, Jones was hospitalised with influenza, but made a full recovery, and in October, he sailed for France to join his unit.

There he joined the 18th Australian Infantry Battalion near the town of Ypres in Belgium. During the winter, the battalion spent time in the Ploegsteert region on the Franco-Belgian border, training and preparing for the expected battles of spring 1918.

In March 1918, the German army launched what would be its final major assault of the war, which became known as the German Spring Offensive. A key objective for the German forces in this attack was to capture the rail-hub city of Amiens and split the British forces in the north from their French allies in the south. British and Australian forces managed to halt the offensive in April at the town of Villers-Bretonneux, less than 30 kilometres from Amiens. Jones and his unit had been brought south to help stop the German advance.

In the first week of April, the 18th Battalion was in the front line at Villers-Bretonneux and the men were targeted by German artillery and machine-gun fire. At the end of the week, the unit was relieved, and the men moved to billets at the smaller village of Gentelles behind the front lines. The battalion’s war diary noted that this town’s civilian population had evacuated in the face of the fighting, so there was plenty of straw for the men to sleep on, and they had their first decent sleep for over a week.

At 6 am the next morning, 9 April 1918, the men were awoken by a German artillery barrage falling on the village. The unit rapidly moved to a nearby field and dug in, but Jones was killed by shell-fire. He was 34 years old.

Jones was buried at Hangard Communal Cemetery Extension, south of Villers-Bretonneux, where over 500 Commonwealth soldiers of the First World War are buried or commemorated.

In Australia, Jones was survived by his mother Louisa and sisters Edith and Elizabeth. His family suffered further pain when the package containing his personal effects was lost. It was bound for Australia on the steam ship Barunga when that ship was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Cornwall in July 1918. British destroyers were soon on the scene and managed to rescue all aboard, but the personal effects of Jones, and about 5,000 other Australian soldiers who had died on the Western Front, were lost.

Private Thomas Rogers Jones 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 Thomas Rogers Jones, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Thomas Rogers
Historian, Military History Section