The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of Second Lieutenant John Clifford Peel, 3 Sqn Australian Flying Corps, 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 Second Lieutenant John Clifford Peel, 3 Sqn Australian Flying Corps, AIF, First World War.

Second Lieutenant John Clifford Peel, 3 Sqn Australian Flying Corps, AIF
KIA 19 September 1918

Today we remember and pay tribute to Second Lieutenant John Clifford Peel.

John Peel was born on 17 April 1894 at Inverleigh, Victoria, the first of nine children born to Charles and Susan Peel. Known as “Cliff” to his family and friends, he attended Inverleigh State School before studying at Geelong High School. He went on to study medicine at the University of Melbourne. Prior to the war, Cliff spent five years in the Australian Military Forces, including a period in the Melbourne University Rifles.

Two other members of Cliff’s family joined the war effort. His younger brother Corporal George Laurie Peel, DCM, served with distinction in the 3rd Light Horse Field Ambulance on Gallipoli. Cliff’s cousin, Colonel Thomas Peel Dunhill, was a surgeon with the 1st Australian Field Hospital in France.

Taking an interest in aviation, in 1917 Cliff volunteered for the fledgling Australian Flying Corps at Point Cook in Victoria. While training in Australia, Cliff linked his interest in aviation to his medical studies. He wrote a letter to the Reverend John Flynn, a Presbyterian minister who worked in the rural and remote areas of the Australian Outback. In the letter, Cliff gave a practical description of how an aerial medical service could be established, and outlined its cheap cost relative to an overland service delivered by truck or train. In time, Reverend Flynn went on to found the Aerial Medical Service, which became the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Cliff enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in October 1917 and sailed to Egypt aboard the transport ship Nestor in November. Soon afterwards he was on board ship again, this time bound for England. Once there, he undertook further pilot training at the Royal Flying Corps School of Aeronautics in Reading.

On 2 September 1918, Cliff joined his unit in France, the Number 3 Squadron of the Australian Flying Corps. When Cliff joined the Australian Flying Corps, aviation was in its infancy. During the war, all belligerent powers had realised the advantages that air superiority could bring, and had developed new aircraft and new tactics. By the time Cliff reached the front, aeroplanes were being used as fighters, bombers, spotters for artillery, and for photographic reconnaissance.

On the day that Cliff arrived at the front, Australian troops had consolidated their capture of the French village of Mont Saint-Quentin. After the capture of the nearby city of Péronne over the following days, their attention turned to the formidable German trench system known as the Hindenburg Line. Alongside a large number of British and Commonwealth troops, their objective was to recapture the old British trenches, and break into the German defences.

The British offensive on the Hindenburg Line began on 18 September, and Number 3 Squadron provided support by dropping smoke bombs on the German lines to impede visibility. Flying RE8s, British-made two-seater biplane bombers and reconnaissance aeroplanes, the men of Number 3 Squadron were able to photograph the movements of the troops on the ground. This important information was then provided to commanders.

The next day, 19 September 1918, Cliff piloted an RE8 with his observer, Lieutenant John Patrick Jeffers, on a similar photographic reconnaissance mission. They went up with an escort of other planes, but were separated from the others in the clouds. All the other planes returned safely, but Cliff’s plane disappeared without trace. The two men were presumed killed in action, and neither their remains nor the wreckage of their plane were ever found.

Cliff is commemorated at the Arras Flying Services Memorial in Arras, France, alongside nearly 1,000 Commonwealth airmen who died on the Western Front and have no known grave. The Lieutenant J. Clifford Peel Airstrip, part of the Silver City Highway in western New South Wales, commemorates Cliff’s early influence on the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Second Lieutenant John Clifford Peel is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among more than 60,000 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 Second Lieutenant John Clifford Peel, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Thomas Rogers
Historian, Military History Section