Gympie Anzac honoured at Australian War Memorial

The Australian War Memorial in Canberra will commemorate the service and sacrifice of Gympie resident Corporal Patrick James Bourne at the Last Post Ceremony on Friday 27 June 2025.

“Patrick Bourne was born in Gympie, Queensland, on 2 May 1916, the elder son of George and Clarice Bourne,” Australian War Memorial Director Matt Anderson said.

“He grew up in Toogoolawah, alongside his siblings Esme, Bill and June, and went on to work as a linotype operator and printer.”

Bourne served in the part-time militia with the 2/14th Light Horse for two years before enlisting for service with the Second Australian Imperial Force on 15 July 1940.

In August 1941, Corporal Bourne embarked from Fremantle for active overseas service, arriving in Singapore after a week of travel. Following the surrender of Singapore to Japanese forces on 15 February 1942, Bourne joined the 15,000 Australians who became prisoners of the Japanese.

In early July 1942, Bourne embarked with B Force, a group of about 1500 Australians, which left Singapore aboard a Japanese hellship, bound for Sandakan in north Borneo.

Throughout 1943 and 1944, conditions and food supplies at the Sandakan No. 1 Prisoner of War Camp deteriorated, beatings and torture worsened, and the numbers of sick grew. In January 1945, the Japanese began to fear an Allied invasion of Borneo, and started moving prisoners on what became known as the Sandakan Death Marches.

Too sick to move, Patrick Bourne reportedly died of malaria on 27 May 1945. He was 29 years old.

The Last Post ceremony is held at 4.30 pm every day except Christmas Day in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial.

Each ceremony shares the story behind one of 103,000 names on the Roll of Honour. To date, the Memorial has delivered more than 4,100 ceremonies, each featuring an individual story of service from colonial to recent conflicts. It would take more than 280 years to read the story behind each of the 103,000 names listed on the Roll of Honour.

“The Last Post Ceremony is our commitment to remembering and honouring the legacy of Australian service,” Mr Anderson said.

“Through our daily Last Post Ceremony, we not only acknowledge where and how these men and women died. We also tell the stories of who they were when they were alive, and of the families who loved and, in so many cases, still mourn for them.

“The Last Post is now associated with remembrance but originally it was a bugle call to sound the end of the day’s activities in the military. It is a fitting way to end each day at the Memorial.”

The Last Post Ceremony honouring the service of Corporal Patrick James Bourne will be live streamed to the Australian War Memorial’s YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/c/awmlastpost.

The stories told at the Last Post Ceremony are researched and written by the Memorial’s military historians, who begin the process by looking at nominal rolls, attestation papers and enlistment records before building profiles that include personal milestones and military experiences.

HANDOUT image: www.awm.gov.au/collection/C334499