The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (121) Able Seaman (Signaller) Robert David Moffatt, Royal Australian Naval Reserve, Australian Naval and military Expeditionary Force, First World War.

Places
Accession Number AWM2019.1.1.216
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 4 August 2019
Access Open
Conflict First World War, 1914-1918
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 , the story for this day was on (121) Able Seaman (Signaller) Robert David Moffatt, Royal Australian Naval Reserve, Australian Naval and military Expeditionary Force, First World War.

Film order form
Speech transcript

121 Able Seaman (Signaller) Robert David Moffatt, Royal Australian Naval Reserve, Australian Naval and military Expeditionary Force
KIA 12 September August 1914


Today we remember and pay tribute to Seaman Robert David Moffatt.

Bob Moffett was born on 1 May 1894 at Pill Farm in Lostwithiel, Cornwall, England to Thomas and Eva Moffatt. He was one of ten children and the only son born to the couple.

The Moffatts immigrated to Australia around the turn of the century and settled in Evans Street, Waverley, New South Wales where Bob attended Waverley Superior Public School. Short in stature, he was known by his family as “Happy Little Bob” or “Little Bob”.

In July 1903, Thomas died from pneumonia, aged 65, leaving Eva to raise her children alone. The burden of responsibility fell on Bob as the only male in the family and despite his youth, it was a role he took on without complaint.

As he got older, Bob assisted his mother in running the family’s store and he would work, for all appearances, tirelessly, from six in the morning until late at night. A family friend, retired Royal Navy Lieutenant Sidney Garrett recalled that Bob was “one of the brightest, most gentlemanly and hardworking lads I ever met with and funny in the extreme and ever full of jokes."

In his spare time, Bob enjoyed listening to Garrett and his tales of life at sea. Garrett further recalled, "I often think it was largely due to me that he ever took up the Navy at all for, as a retired deepwater skipper, he was never tired of listening to my tales of the sea, and it was his joy to borrow an old uniform cap that I kept hanging in the hall … When Bob got that hat on he was made."
Bob entertained dreams of joining the Royal Navy, but Garrett counselled his young friend that he had “family obligations, and so … he did the next best thing and joined the Reserve."

Moffatt joined the Royal Australian Naval Reserve aged 17. His stature had not improved throughout his teens and his service record lists him as standing 4 feet 10 inches tall and weighing 38 kilograms. Moffatt trained at Garden Island and qualified as a signalman.

When HMAS Australia arrived in Sydney Harbour for the first time in early October 1913, Moffatt would have had the opportunity not only to tour the pride of the Royal Australian Navy’s fleet, but he would have been attached to the ship’s company for training.

Soon after the outbreak of the First Word War, the British Government sent a request to the Australian Government asking them to raise and send a force to German New Guinea and surrounding territories to destroy wireless stations and occupy those territories. This force, known as the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force would be made up of an infantry battalion with several other sections attached and a naval brigade of 500 men divided into 6 companies.

As a Royal Australian Naval Reservist, Moffatt was called up for full-time service around 9 August and was attached as a signalman to No. 3 Company, led by Lieutenant Oscar Gillan.

By 18 August, the AN&MEF had gathered at Cockatoo Island where the soldiers and sailors boarded the transport ship Berrima, which departed the same day, escorted by the bulk of the Royal Australian Navy, including HMA Ships Australia, Encounter, Parramatta and submarines AE1 and AE2.

After a brief stop at Palm Island, the force arrived off Kabakaul in the early hours of 11 September. The initial landing was unopposed but as the morning went on, the German resistance intensified. Several reinforcement parties were landed during the morning and Lieutenant Gillan’s No. 3 Company, which included Moffatt, was called ashore around midday and began making its way inland towards the sounds of fighting along the road to Bitapaka.

As Gillan and his men neared the fighting, a member of the company Able Seaman John Courtney was shot and killed. Gillan’s men located and secured a mine dug in under the road. As there was no detonator discovered, the men moved on. Soon after No. 3 Company came under fire again and two Australians were wounded, including Moffatt who was shot twice in the side. One of his comrades later wrote in a letter about Moffatt that “as soon as he was hit he sang out for his mother.”

Able Seaman Gus Shea who helped carry Moffatt some three kilometres back to the shore for evacuation also wrote in a letter that “it is terrible to hear the wounded scream … I don’t want to hear any more.”

Moffatt was taken aboard HMAS Australia where, despite the administration of morphine, he lingered in agony throughout the night. He succumbed to his wounds around 8 am on 12 September. As HMAS Australia got underway for Samoa, Moffatt was buried at sea three degrees north of Herbertshohe with full military honours at 11.30 am. He was 20 years old.

For the first of what would be many occasions during the war, the rector of the Anglican Church of Newtown, made his way to a family home to deliver the most unwanted of news, and so it proved as he delivered the news to Eva Moffatt that her son had been killed on active service. She never recovered from the loss of her son and sank into a deep depression. On 21 April 1918, she took her own life.

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 Seaman Robert David Moffatt, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Michael Kelly
Historian, Military History Section