The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (3523) Lance Corporal John Edmond Connop, 29th Australian Infantry 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 , the story for this day was on (3523) Lance Corporal John Edmond Connop, 29th Australian Infantry Battalion, AIF, First World War.

3523 Lance Corporal John Edmond Connop, 29th Australian Infantry Battalion, AIF
DOW: 16 October 1917

Today we remember and pay tribute to Lance Corporal John Edmond Connop.

John Edmond Connop was born in 1893 in Little River, Victoria, the second of five children of John and Margaret Connop. John attended school in the small town of Cocoroc, and after leaving school became a farm labourer in the district.

In March 1916, Connop enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, perhaps following the example of his younger brother, Edward, who had enlisted the previous July. Connop trained at Broadmeadows camp before sailing on the transport ship Orsova to England.

After training in England, Connop arrived in France in mid-November 1916. There, he joined his unit, the 29th Battalion, in the Somme sector of the Western Front. The European winter of 1916 and 1917 was the coldest in memory, and the Australian soldiers were especially unused to the cold and wet conditions.

With the transition to spring, it became apparent that the German forces had withdrawn from their forward positions to a more heavily defended line. The Australian and other British troops followed up this withdrawal in a series of large battles, and smaller scale trench raids. In early March, members of the 29th Battalion carried out a raid on German trenches near Gueudecourt in northern France.

During the fighting, Connop was wounded, suffering a gunshot wound to his back. He was evacuated to hospital in the port city of Etaples. Though stable, he required rehabilitation, and he was sent to England to recover at a convalescent camp in Dartford. He remained there for four months, returning to his unit in France in August 1917.

In autumn, the British commanders began a new offensive focused around the Belgian town of Ypres. During the campaign, the 29th Battalion took part in the battle of Polygon Wood at the end of September. After the battle, Connop was promoted to the rank of lance corporal.

In early October, Connop’s unit was holding the line on the ground they had captured in September. To the north, other Australian units were taking part in a failed attempt to capture Passchendaele ridge. The 29th Battalion sent out working parties to help construct duckboarding through the almost impassable mud, and to establish defensive barbed wire positions.

While moving engineering stores near Ypres, the unit came under German artillery fire. Connop, struck by shell fragments, was badly wounded. The following day, 16 October 1917, he died of his wounds. He was 24 years old.

John Connop was buried in Lissjenthoek Military Cemetery, alongside more than 10,000 burials of the First World War. His grieving mother chose the inscription for his headstone: “Sacred heart of Jesus, have mercy on him”.

John’s younger brother Edward also served in the AIF. Fighting with the 7th Battalion, he too was wounded during the Ypres campaign, and died of his wounds five days before John.

Lance Corporal John Edmond Connop 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 Lance Corporal John Edmond Connop, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Thomas Rogers
Historian, Military History Section