The stories behind the Last Post
Richard Warne's story is a tragic one. The 21-year-old private survived the horrors of the First World War, only to be killed within sight of home.
Warne arrived back in Australia in August 1919, and had already travelled from Melbourne to Brisbane when he made a decision that would end his life.
He and a friend had hopped on a train to continue the long trip home to the tiny village of Owanyilla, just south of Maryborough, when he learned the train wouldn’t be stopping there. Preferring to go straight home, Warne decided he would jump as the train slowed near the platform at Owanyilla.
In the early hours before dawn, Warne woke his friend to say goodbye, threw his kit bag off the train and jumped after it into the dark, his overcoat slung over his right arm.
Hours later, a station guard found Warne’s kit bag a few feet from the platform and took it to the woman responsible for keeping the railway gates. Curious, she followed along the tracks towards Maryborough and found Warne, lying unconscious in a rock cutting by the track.
The woman sent her sister to the nearest house for help as she tried frantically to save Warne. When her sister told the man at the house of the accident, he followed her back along the tracks, only to find his son, bloodied and broken, but still breathing. The man who had come to help was Warne’s father, Richard Warne senior.
Devastated, he cradled his son; the son who had been through so much on the Western Front, and was just moments from home and a much-anticipated reunion. Warne never regained consciousness, and his father was with him as he died on the way to hospital.
Warne’s story was told at a Last Post Ceremony at the Australian War Memorial and is now part of a new book telling the stories behind the ceremony.
The Last Post: a ceremony of love, loss and remembrance at the Australian War Memorial was launched by the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten at Parliament House on Wednesday.
Speaking at the launch, the Prime Minister said Warne’s story was a poignant reminder of the risks of service and spoke of the significance of the view of the Australian War Memorial from Parliament House.
“It is a constant reminder of all of us that everything we're doing has been won, freedoms we're exercising have been won by the service and sacrifice of those honoured at the War Memorial,” he said.
“Imagine, having survived the Western Front, [Warne had] come home. His family, you can imagine their emotion. So many of their friends’ and neighbours’ sons had been killed and their boy was coming home and he died jumping off the train to so he could get to his family sooner.
“This is a beautiful book. But it tells with such sensitivity and such eloquence one story after another. Thirty stories, in their own way they represent the stories of the more than 102,000 names on the Memorial’s Roll of Honour…
“Every one shines a light on another brushstroke telling the story of one of our forebears.”
The book tells the story behind the Memorial’s Last Post Ceremony, which began five years ago with the story of Robert Poate, who served and died in Afghanistan at the age of 23.
It presents a selection of personal stories and images related to the ceremony, while reflecting on why we commemorate, the changing nature of commemoration through history, and the central role played by the Australian War Memorial in our national story.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said the book combined the best traditions of the Anzacs and Australia.
“Without varnish or vainglory, it speaks for the courage of every Australian who has worn the Australian uniform,” he said.
For author Emma Campbell, the book has been particularly special. A former journalist, Campbell has worked at the Memorial for 12 years and is a writer and researcher in the Memorial’s Military History Section. She spent 18 months working on the book and was particularly moved by Warne’s story and the stories of those who served.
“It’s amazing to see the affect that the Last Post Ceremony has on people,” she said. “Once you tell someone a story about a particular person they are able to understand better the experience of war – they empathise, they sympathise. I It doesn’t matter who you are, what age you are, or where you’re from, you can find something to relate to in the Last Post Ceremony stories, and I think that’s why this has become so important and resonated so well with the public. Those servicemen and servicewomen are no longer just a name on the Roll of Honour, but a real person, who loved and was loved.
“Warne’s story stood out as being particularly tragic, but is there any one that is more tragic than the other? I don’t know. They all end very badly, and what I tried to do with the 30 or so that are in the book is be representative of those 102,800 names that are on the Roll of Honour. They are nurses, infantrymen, pilots, transport drivers, artillerymen, commandoes and seamen, but also husbands, daughters, sons, sisters and brothers.”
“A couple of other stories from the book that particularly stand out to me are that of Caroline Ennis, who was cradling two small children as a raft drifted out to sea after the ship they were on was bombed by the Japanese during the Second World War.
“There is another story about a Private Tom Jones and, in fact, the story about Tom Jones doesn’t say an awful lot at all. He went into action and he was hit by a shell and that was it. He’d only been at war a few months, and I think that story is also poignant because there is scant detail there, and it’s very representative of the infantrymen’s experience during the First World War.”
She said it was an honour to share their stories and what the ceremony has meant to the thousands of people who have been involved in the event so far.
“The Memorial was founded by Charles Bean to ensure that the nation would never forget the spirit of those who served, and to help others understand the Australian experience of war,” she said. “The Last Post Ceremony is a great example of what we do here at the Memorial, and what we hope to achieve, so for me to have been able to do my bit with this book is a great honour.”
The Last Post: a ceremony of love, loss and remembrance at the Australian War Memorial is published by NewSouth and is available at the Memorial shop and online for $29.99 and at bookstores nationally.