The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (NX9875) Private John Leo McAviney, 2/3rd Battalion, AIF, Second Wolrd 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 Richard Cruise, the story for this day was on (NX9875) Private John Leo McAviney, 2/3rd Battalion, AIF, Second Wolrd War.

NX9875 Private John Leo McAviney, 2/3rd Battalion, AIF
KIA 22 December 1940

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private John Leo McAviney.

John Leo McAviney was born on 24 May 1906 in Sydney, the son of Thomas and Bridget McAviney. Known as “Jack” to his family and friends, he later went to school at St Stanislaus’ College in the town of Bathurst, where his father worked as an official at the gaol.

He later moved back to Sydney, and in 1927 he married Eva Day in Waverley. The couple had one child together, Judith.
McAviney worked in a number of jobs. In 1933 he was working as a clerk at the Zig Zag Brewery in Lithgow west of the Blue Mountains. In 1934, the year his daughter was born, he was working as a clerk in Burwood in Sydney, and at the time of his enlistment was living with his young family on Harwood Island, on the Clarence River north of Coffs Harbour on the New South Wales coast. There, he worked in a local sugar mill, assisted his father-in-law in bricklaying, and worked as a motor mechanic and driver.
Not long after the Second World War began, McAviney made the journey south to Sydney. He enlisted in Paddington on 3 January, was taken on strength of the 2/3rd Battalion at Ingleburn on the 5th, and sailed from Sydney Harbour on the 10th. He had been in the military for only one week, and was sailing with the first convoy of Australian troops to be sent for overseas service in the war.

McAviney disembarked in Egypt on 14 February 1940 and soon moved with the rest of his unit to train at a camp near Gaza. With the exception of a short period of service in a security detachment in Jerusalem, McAviney remained at this training base for nearly eight months, working as a transport driver.

In September, he moved with his unit to Allied Camps and bases in Egypt in preparation to join the fighting against Italian forces, who had declared war against Britain and France in June, and were attacking along the border between Egypt and Libya.

In early October, while at the British camp at Amiriya, the 2/3rd Battalion saw their first fighting during an enemy air raid. In December, they transferred to the forward Allied defences at Bagush, to the west of Alexandria and the Egyptian coast, and by 18 December were based at El Saloum near the Libyan–Egyptian border.

On 22 December, while stationed about five kilometres from the Italian line near Bardia, the troops of the 2/3rd Infantry Battalion came under attack from a squadron of 22 low flying Italian bombers.

Several men were wounded, and three, including McAviney, were killed, likely when an Italian bomb damaged the 2/3rd Battalion’s Regimental Aid Post truck.

John McAviney was 36 years old, survived by his grieving wife and young daughter.

Today his remains lie in the Knightsbridge War Cemetery in Libya, where over 3,600 casualties of the Second World War are buried and commemorated.
His gravestone, far from home, simply reads: “Rest in peace”.

His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, among almost 40,000 Australians who died while serving in the Second 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 John Leo McAviney, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

David Sutton
Historian, Military History Section