The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (4926a) Private John Gardiner Thompson, 5th Pioneer Battalion, 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 Troy Clayton, the story for this day was on (4926a) Private John Gardiner Thompson, 5th Pioneer Battalion, AIF, First World War.

4926a Private John Gardiner Thompson, 5th Pioneer Battalion, AIF
KIA 26 November 1916

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private John Gardiner Thompson.

John Thompson, known as “Jack”, was born in 1891, the eldest son of William and Agnes Coulter of Eaglehawk, Victoria. His father, who was known as “Shad”, was a miner and an active member of the Manchester Unity Lodge of Oddfellows, a temperance organisation. Jack and his father had a particularly close relationship. After completing his education, Jack worked for an auction rooms for six years. He went on to work at a local drapery before quitting and taking up mining.

Jack Thompson probably took up mining around the time war broke out in Europe in August 1914. He only worked at it for a short time before he left that job too, enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force. Jack underwent a period of training in Australia before he left Melbourne for active service overseas with reinforcements to the 7th Battalion on 7 March 1916.

Private Thompson was first sent to Egypt, where he continued training in the desert for a few weeks. He learnt to take his drills seriously after being punished for passing a false message while engaged on night exercises. During this period he was transferred to the 5th Pioneer Battalion.

Private Thompson’s battalion was sent to France in June 1916. Shortly after its arrival, it entered the front line near the French village of Fromelles. On 19 July 1916, infantry battalions of the 5th Division took part in a disastrous operation against German positions, suffering the largest number of casualties by a single Australian division in a 24-hour period. The 5th Pioneer Battalion remained close to the action but not part of it. Instead they entered the battlefield once the operation was over, conducting salvage work, repairing trenches, and burying the dead.

After spending some time in the north recovering its strength, the 5th Australian Division returned to the Somme later in the year. By late 1916 the 5th Pioneer Battalion was in the front line near the French village of Longueval. Winter had set in, and constant rain made the trenches a muddy morass. The pioneers, charged with construction and maintenance of the trenches and roads, became demoralised as everything they did was hampered or even destroyed by the sucking mud. The battalion’s war diary records that the “men feel they are working to no purpose and get very exhausted”.

On 26 November, Private Jack Thompson was with his company digging a sap from the front line of trenches to the second line. A man nearby, Driver Punch, later described how there was “a hiss and a roar, and a shell had caught three of our brave mates, which killed them instantaneously.” Private Jack Thompson, Private Ike Cocking and Private Tom Nugent were killed, while a fourth man was wounded in the blast. Their bodies were removed from the battlefield and buried nearby.

A friend of Jack’s from Bendigo who was also in the 5th Pioneers wrote, “I was with [Tom] when he and Jack Thompson fell. It was a great loss to me, but they died without pain, and they had a good burial, everything possible being done for them.” Today the three men lie side by side in the AIF Burial Ground at Grass Lane, Flers.

Less than a year later, Jack’s father, Shad Thompson, died after an extended illness. The Bendigo Independent noted that Shad left “a widow and a grown up family, the eldest son having been killed in France, which also helped to hasten his death, as he was greatly attached to his eldest boy.” Jack Thompson was 24 years old.

His 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 Private John Gardiner Thompson, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Meleah Hampton
Historian, Military History Section