The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (6341) Lance Corporal Ernest Charles Thomas, 16th 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 (6341) Lance Corporal Ernest Charles Thomas, 16th Australian Infantry Battalion, AIF, First World War.

6341 Lance Corporal Ernest Charles Thomas, 16th Australian Infantry Battalion, AIF
DOW 29 September 1917

Today we remember and pay tribute to Lance Corporal Ernest Charles Thomas.

Ernest Thomas was born in 1884 in Pinjarra, Western Australia, the son of Emily and Charles Thomas. Known as “Ern”, he attended school in Fremantle. After leaving school, he married Ella Siford in 1907 in Jarrahdale.

By 1916, Thomas and Ella had had two sons and two daughters. Thomas was working as a timber cutter in the town of Mornington Mills, cutting sleepers for railway tracks.

He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force at Bunbury in April 1916. He undertook training at the army camp there for four months. During the early part of his training, Thomas contracted measles, and was treated in hospital for two weeks before being released to light duties. By October, he had fully recovered, and embarked from Fremantle on the transport ship Suffolk, arriving in England in early December.

In January 1917, Thomas sailed to France and joined his unit, the 16th Australian Infantry Battalion. As the weather warmed up in spring, the British and Australian forces realised that the German forces had retreated from their forward trenches in the Somme sector, and had moved to a strongly defended position known to the British as the Hindenburg Line.

In April, Thomas’s unit took part in an assault on a strongpoint in this line, the French village of Bullecourt. The attack began at 4:30 in the morning, and the Australian soldiers were to be supported by 12 British tanks. Unfortunately, by 7 am, all the tanks had been destroyed or put out of action by the German defenders. Although Thomas’s unit had reached its objective, they were isolated, and by midday they had to retreat from the position. Thomas was one of only 660 men in his brigade of 3,000 who were able to leave the battlefield unharmed.

During the summer months of 1917, Thomas’s unit was stationed near the Franco-Belgian border. He spent time in the front line and in the rear areas continuing his training. Thomas had demonstrated leadership skills, and in August he was promoted to the rank of lance corporal. In September, the 16th Battalion moved north to the Belgian town of Ypres. There, the Australian and British forces began preparations for a major offensive with the objective of pushing the German forces out of Flanders.

Near dawn on 26 September, Thomas’s unit attacked the German lines near a small plantation known as Polygon Wood. The unit reached and held its objective within an hour, but Thomas had been shot in both legs and was badly wounded. He was evacuated to a nearby casualty clearing station, but died of his wounds on 29 September 1917. He was 33 years old.

Ernest Thomas’s remains lie buried in Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery in Belgium, along with 9,900 other Commonwealth First World War soldiers. His wife had the following epitaph inscribed on his headstone: “Oh for a touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice so still”.

Thomas was survived in Australia by his wife Ella and their children Leslie, Amy, Ernest, May, and their youngest son Reginald, who was born in 1917 and had never met his father. For Ella, this was the second blow of the war. She had been informed in January 1917 that her brother, Private Luke Siford, had died after being captured by the German army at Pozieres in July 1916.

Lance Corporal Ernest Charles Thomas 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 Lance Corporal Ernest Charles Thomas, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Thomas Rogers
Historian, Military History Section