The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (71a) Sergeant Louis McNamara, 1st Division Signals Company, AIF, First World War.

Places
Accession Number AWM2020.1.1.157
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 5 June 2020
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 Troy Clayton, the story for this day was on (71a) Sergeant Louis McNamara, 1st Division Signals Company, AIF, First World War.

Film order form
Speech transcript

71a Sergeant Louis McNamara, 1st Division Signals Company, AIF
DOW 18 September 1918
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 25 May 2016

Today we remember and pay tribute to Sergeant Louis McNamara, who died while fighting in France during the First World War.

Louis McNamara was born in 1887, one of four children of David and Emma McNamara of Medindie, Adelaide. Having received an early education from his father, in 1901 McNamara won the Elder entrance scholarship to Prince Alfred College, where he gained the Colton medal for chemistry. After winning the Old Scholars’ prize and Angus engineering exhibition, he gained entry into Adelaide University as a student of electrical engineering.

After graduating with first-class honours in 1909, McNamara subsequently received a Diploma in Applied Science and was granted an associateship from the School of Mines. He worked as an electrical engineer for the Adelaide Underwriters, and was at Elder, Smith & Co. Electrical Company when war broke out in 1914.

McNamara was also an active participant of the choir at St Luke’s Cathedral, and the honourable secretary of the Australian Forest League. He was a member of the South Australian College Cadet Battalion and an active member of the Adelaide Rifle Club.

McNamara enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in August 1914, and after a period of training embarked with the first troopship convoy in September 1914 as an original member of the 3rd Field Company Engineers. The following months were spent training at Mena Camp near Cairo. McNamara landed at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915 and spent four months on Gallipoli before being evacuated to England with enteric fever.

McNamara did not return to his unit until June 1916, after the Australians had transferred to the fighting on the Western Front. He fought at Pozières and Mouquet Farm, and in October transferred to the I ANZAC Corps Wireless Section, which installed, maintained, and operated the wireless telecommunications equipment that allowed headquarters to be in communication with their divisions in the field.

In 1917 McNamara was at a position near Grevilliers where he “personally installed a power buzzer in that village when it was under constant shell-fire”. Several days later, near Lagnicourt, McNamara “was the operator who attempted to establish wireless communication with the front line” during the 7th Brigade’s attack. He was recommended for a Military Medal for his actions, and it read:

This sapper has done excellent work in the field since last November, from the first time he was a volunteer for carrying a power buzzer forward in an advance … He has usually managed to be in the most dangerous corners with either a power buzzer amplifier or listening post.

In June 1917 McNamara transferred to the 1st Division Signal Company, where his expertise in electrical engineering was well-suited to the cable-based telecommunication systems employed by the British army at the time. In Belgium in January 1918 he suffered severe burns from a German gas shell that left him temporarily blinded and required his evacuation to England. Returning to France, he was promoted to sergeant just as the German army launched its Spring Offensive on the Somme.

By September 1918 the Australians had successfully pushed the German army back towards the Hindenburg Line, the last line of resistance in France. On 18 September, McNamara was mortally wounded in the head and leg by a German shell as he went forward to mend a break in the signalling wire. He was evacuated to a nearby casualty clearance station, but succumbed to his wounds later that day. He was buried in the civilian cemetery at Buire, although is remains were later reinterred at Cerisy-Gailly French National Cemetery. A small epitaph on his headstone reads: “He died as he lived, faithful to duty”. He was 31.

Sergeant McNamara’s name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among more than 60,000 others from the First World War. His photograph is displayed today beside the Pool of Reflection.

This is just one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Sergeant Louis McNamara, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Aaron Pegram
Historian, Military History Section

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