The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (NX205652) Sapper Terence Ronald Moore, 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers, 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 Meleah Hampton, the story for this day was on (NX205652) Sapper Terence Ronald Moore, 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers, Second World War.

NX205652 Sapper Terence Ronald Moore, 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers
Killed in training accident 21 May 1945

Today, we pay tribute to Sapper Terence Ronald Moore.

Born on Christmas Day 1926, Terence Ronald Moore was the son of Edward Alfred Moore and Beryl Jean Moore of the Sydney suburb of Arncliffe.

As a young man, Terence Moore attended Kogarah Technical School. He volunteered for the Second Australian Imperial Force on 23 January 1945, just after his eighteenth birthday. At the time, Moore was working as a plant operator.

In April, Moore was posted to the 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers, at the large Australian Army training base at Kapooka, New South Wales. But on the afternoon of the 21st of May 1945, tragedy struck.

During a routine demolition training exercise on the preparation of hand charges, two groups of men were crowded into a dugout. One group was composed of 22 trainees and two instructors, the other was a smaller squad of three men and one instructor. Inside the dugout were 110 pounds of explosives, stored for the day’s training exercise. In circumstances that remain unknown to this day, the explosives ignited. In the explosion, 24 men were killed instantly; two died of injuries shortly afterwards; and two more were severely injured.
Terence Moore was one of those killed in the accident. He was 18 years old.

A mass funeral was held for the men in Wagga Wagga on 24 May 1945. Thousands of people lined the route of the funeral parade. The 26 flag-draped coffins were carried on four army trucks. The cortege included over 100 military vehicles carrying members of the Army and Air Force. The dead were taken to be buried in the Wagga Wagga War Cemetery.

For many years after the war, on the anniversary of Terence’s death – his mother and father posted a notice in his memory in the Sydney Morning Herald. Each year it read: “Forever in the hearts of his loving family”.
Moore’s name – along with the other twenty five who were killed in the accident – is listed here on the Roll of Honour on my left, among the more than 102,000 Australians who have been killed in war.

This is but one of the many stories of courage and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Sapper Terence Ronald Moore, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section