The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of VX46200 Private Charles Trevor Featherstone, 2/21st Australian Infantry Battalion, Second 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 Thomas Rogers, the story for this day was on VX46200 Private Charles Trevor Featherstone, 2/21st Australian Infantry Battalion, Second World War.

VX46200 Private Charles Trevor Featherstone, 2/21st Australian Infantry Battalion
Illness 28 March 1944

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Charles Trevor Featherstone.

Charles Featherstone was born on 5 July 1916 in the Melbourne suburb of Fairfield. The son of Joseph and Nellie Featherstone, he grew up in Melbourne, and later found employment as a bootmaker.

In 1936 he married Lorna Holden, and the two lived in East Preston, where they raised their children, Margaret and Geoffrey.

On 9 July 1940, Charles Featherstone enlisted at Town Hall in Melbourne. He soon joined other recruits at a training battalion in Shepparton.

In early August, Featherstone was admitted to hospital with mumps. But after just over a week he was back in training, and in October he joined the 2/21st Battalion. The 2/21st Battalion had just been raised, and was earmarked to reinforce Dutch troops on Ambon (in modern-day Indonesia) if the Japanese decided to attack.

As the likelihood of war with Japan grew, the battalion began arriving in Darwin in early April 1941, and spent the next nine months training and on garrison duties. Living in isolated and uncomfortable quarters, the battalion’s preparations were hampered through a lack of equipment. After the Japanese invasion of Malaya in early December, the announcement that the battalion was to move to Ambon was received with a mixture of relief and trepidation.

Private Featherstone arrived at Ambon on 17 December, part of Gull Force, which consisted of the 2/21st Battalion supported by anti-tank artillery, engineers and other supporting arms. With a combined strength of 1,100 men, and Netherlands East Indies forces on the island numbering some 2,600 men, Gull Force was tasked with defending the Bay of Ambon and the airfields at Laha and Liang.

With such a small force at his disposal the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Leonard Roach, urgently requested reinforcement and despaired that the defence of Ambon was untenable. Roach was relieved of his command, and his replacement, Lieutenant Colonel John Scott, set to altering the location of many of his defensive positions on the eve of an invasion, leaving Gull Force even less prepared.

Three battalions of Japanese infantry and a battalion of marines landed on the night of 30 January 1942. Outnumbered and lacking air or naval support, the 2/21st Battalion was unable to prevent the advance, and were pushed to the far west of the peninsula. Within 24 hours of the landing, Dutch forces on the island had capitulated. Around 150 Australian soldiers were captured, and many were later massacred following a major Japanese offensive in early February. The remainder of the battalion surrendered the following day.

Although several small parties managed to escape Ambon and return to Australia, Featherstone was one of around 790 men who were captured and went into captivity as prisoners of war.

Conditions for the prisoners on Ambon were poor, and they suffered the highest death rate of any group of Australian prisoners of war.

Japanese treatment of the prisoners became harsh after a successful escape was made by a small party of Australians in March 1942. Command of the camp was taken over by Japanese marines in mid-1942.

Starvation, executions, and diseases were common.
By war’s end more than two-thirds of the prisoners were dead. Some died in Allied raids on a Japanese bomb dump located next to the camp, while others died as a result of medical experiments. One survivor described their hopelessness toward the end:
We'd go out and dig the graves, and then bury them. And by the time we got back from one there'd be another one ready to go out … You couldn't keep up with it. You'd wake up through the night and you'd hear them, you'd hear the death rattles.

Charles Featherstone died of beriberi on 28 March 1944. He was 27 years old.

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 Charles Trevor Featherstone, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Duncan Beard
Historian, Military History Section