The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (897) Trooper Harry Hoskin, 8th Light Horse Regiment, 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 Jennifer Surtees, the story for this day was on (897) Trooper Harry Hoskin, 8th Light Horse Regiment, AIF, First World War.

897 Trooper Harry Hoskin, 8th Light Horse Regiment, AIF
KIA 7 August 1915

Today we remember and pay tribute to Trooper Harry Hoskin.

Harry Hoskin was born in 1896 on his family’s farm, known as the Home Farm, at Boscastle in Cornwall, England, the second of seven children of Henry and Mary Hoskin.

He attended the Grammar School in Camelford, but by the age of 15 was working for his father on the farm.

In 1913, the 18-year-old Harry left home and emigrated to Australia. He does not appear to have travelled to Australia alone: two friends – Richard Bowering and Henry Stephens – also travelled with him. Arriving in Victoria, the group found work as stock riders at Barwon Hills in Winchelsea.

Hoskin and his mates would no doubt have been aware of the storm clouds of war building up in Europe. After the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the three men travelled from Winchelsea to Geelong, where they enlisted together on 30 November. After a period of training at Broadmeadows Camp, Hoskin and Bowering were posted to the 5th reinforcements to the 8th Light Horse Regiment. Stephens was posted to the 5th reinforcements to the 4th Light Horse Regiment.

The three friends embarked with other reinforcements from Melbourne on 7 May 1915 aboard the transport ship Palermo, bound for Gallipoli. During the voyage, Hoskin and another Englishman he had met during training acted as medical orderlies. One of Hoskin’s friends wrote, “his great attention to a chap who was ill was only one example of his unselfish and sacrificing character, which made him popular with us all.”

Hoskin arrived on Gallipoli on 5 August and joined his unit, stationed at Walker’s Ridge. Hoskin and Bowering were posted to separate troops. The new arrivals would have found the ANZAC positions to be a hive of activity as the Allied August Offensive was about to begin.

At 4.30 pm the following afternoon, Australian infantrymen charged Ottoman positions at Lone Pine, which began a three-day battle of a nature even Dante may have had trouble describing. The light horsemen over at the Nek heard the roar of men and the weapons of war, and knew it was to be their turn only some 12 hours hence.

The attack on the Nek, carried out by the light horsemen, was to be the hammer blow to trap the Ottomans against the anvil of the New Zealanders – who were to advance up Rhododendron Ridge and capture Baby 700, a feature above the Nek.

A determined Ottoman defence had delayed the New Zealanders – and by rights this should have also caused a delay in the Australian attack. Instead, the orders were still to go, with the hope that the attack by the Australians would instead assist the New Zealanders.

It was with a great deal of courage, and much trepidation, that the light horsemen of the 8th – who were the first two waves of the attack – made their preparations in the early hours of 7 August.

A heavy bombardment by the Royal Navy on the Ottoman positions forced the Ottoman defenders to abandon their front line and seek the safety of their rear trenches and dugouts. But at 4.23 am, the guns (which were meant to fire right up to the moment of the attack at 4.30 am) ceased firing. This gave the Ottoman defenders ample time to return to their firing line and set up and test-fire their weapons.

The Australians, knowing what awaited them, quietly shook hands with one another. The commanding officer of the 8th Light Horse, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander White, who would lead his men over the top, made his way along the line ensuring his men were all right.

At 4.30 am White blew his whistle and the first wave rose from their trenches with a roar, but the roar of the Ottoman machine-guns, rifles and bombs – a veritable tornado of steel and lead – scythed down the first wave in about 30 seconds. White was killed no more than five metres from the trench.

The second wave of the 8th went over soon after and met a similar fate. Two further waves of the 10th Light Horse went over at 4.45 am – and after a delay during which attempts were made to stop the slaughter, the fourth wave went over shortly after 5.15 am.

Of the 600 men who took part in the attack at the Nek, 372 became casualties. The 8th Light Horse suffered 234 casualties, including 154 men killed. The 10th Light Horse had suffered 138 casualties of whom 80 had been killed.

Among the dead were Harry Hoskin, aged 19, and his mate Dick Bowering, aged 20. Both men had been on Gallipoli for less than 48 hours.

Hoskin and Bowering’s unidentified friend, who had gone over the top with Hoskin at the Nek and survived, later wrote a letter to Dick Bowering’s mother about her son’s death. As he did not have Hoskin’s home address, he asked Mrs Bowering to pass the news on to his parents. In the letter, aside from mentioning their shared time as medical orderlies, he asked her to let Mr Hoskin know that his son “was a lad to be proud of”. He concluded, “This cruel war has made many sore hearts, but I think it is some consolation to you to know they were soldiers and gentlemen always.”

Of the three friends from Boscastle, only Henry Stephens would survive the war.

The bodies of Hoskin, Bowering and so many others could not be retrieved and remained unburied where they fell – until Charles Bean’s Gallipoli mission returned to the peninsula in 1919. In the process of burying the Australian and Ottoman remains, only five Australians could be identified. Hoskin was not among them. His name, along with over 4,000 other Australians with no known grave, was added to the Lone Pine Memorial to the missing.

Harry Hoskin’s 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 Trooper Harry Hoskin, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Michael Kelly
Historian, Military History Section