The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (QX10898) Private Robin James Gilchrist, 2/26th Battalion, Second Australian Imperial Force, 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 Craig Berelle, the story for this day was on (QX10898) Private Robin James Gilchrist, 2/26th Battalion, Second Australian Imperial Force, Second World War.

QX10898 Private Robin James Gilchrist, 2/26th Battalion, Second Australian Imperial Force
DOI 1 August 1943

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Robin James Gilchrist.

Robin Gilchrist was born on 12 August 1902 in Maryborough, Queensland, the son of James and Eliza Gilchrist. His father was a timber carrier and farmer who later settled on “Pine View Farm” near Gundiah. Eliza Gilchrist died in 1903 after giving birth to a daughter, and it was six years before James Gilchrist remarried. The family eventually grew to include seven sons and five daughters.

Robin Gilchrist attended a provisional school in Deborah, and later the Gundiah School, to which he rode each day on horseback. He was a skilled horseman, and rode in local sporting events. After leaving school he worked with his father and as a station hand and labourer. He did get into trouble with the law on one occasion, arrested for stealing a horse, and served six months.

Gilchrist was working as a drover when he volunteered for the Second Australian Imperial Force. Enlisting on 27 July 1940, he suffered a few bouts of illness before being taken on strength of No. 3 Infantry Training Battalion. His home service was punctuated with a few more trips to hospital, once with mumps, before embarking with the 2/26th Battalion aboard a Dutch transport ship, arriving in Singapore on 15 August 1941.

Following Japan’s entry into the war in December, the 2/26th was part of the 8th Division’s defence of the Malayan peninsula. On 15 February 1942, after weeks of fierce fighting, Singapore fell to the Japanese, and Gilchrist became one of 45,000 Australian and British troops captured in the surrender.

The Japanese began to draft their prisoners into forced labour units. In May 1942, A Force left Changi for Burma, where the men formed part of a large workforce of slave labourers constructing the Burma–Thailand Railway. Conditions were horrific. Many of the prisoners were malnourished, and disease was rife. In all, 479 Australian soldiers died on the Burma section of the railway.

It is likely that Private Gilchrist was part of A Force, and worked on the railway. On 1 August 1943 he died of blackwater fever, a complication from malaria. He was just shy of his 42nd birthday.

Back in Australia there was little news communicated about prisoners of war, and Gilchrist’s family did not learn of his death until September 1945.

Gilchrist’s remains were later reinterred at the Thanbayuzayat War Cemetery in Myanmar, under the inscription “Loved by parents, brothers and sisters”. He is also commemorated on his mother’s headstone in Tiaro Cemetery.

Private Robin James Gilchrist’s name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, along with some 40,000 others from 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 Robin Gilchrist, and all those Australians who have given their lives in service of our nation.

Christina Zissis
Editor, Military History Section