Next of kin plaque: Sergeant John Reginald Storer, 2nd Pioneer Battalion, AIF

Bronze next of kin plaque, showing on the obverse, Britannia holding a laurel wreath, the British lion, dolphins, a spray of oak leaves and the words 'HE DIED FOR FREEDOM AND HONOUR' around the edge. Beneath the main figures, the British lion defeats the German eagle. The initials 'ECP', for the designer Edward Carter Preston appear above the lion's right forepaw. A raised rectangle above the lion's head bears the name 'JOHN REGINALD STORER'.

Born in Enmore, Sydney, New South Wales, John Reginald Storer was employed as a fitter and turner when he enlisted in the AIF on 28 April 1915. After initial training he was posted a private, service number 1047, to C Company of the newly raised 19th Battalion. The unit sailed from Sydney on 15 June, aboard HMAT A40 Ceramic. Before the battalion landed on Gallipoli in August, Storer was transferred to the 4th Field Company Engineers, and he served with them on the peninsula from 3 September. He rejoined the 19th Battalion at the end of the year.

The battalion arrived in France in March 1916, but before it took part in any fighting Storer, by now a corporal, was again transferred, on 20 June, to the 2nd Pioneer Battalion. Storer was promoted sergeant in August 1917. On 30 September, while the pioneers were camped at Swan Chateau in a reserve area of the Ypres sector in Belgium, Storer received a shrapnel wound to his left thigh when a German aircraft bombed the camp at night. He was evacuated to England for medical treatment and did not rejoin his unit until 11 December.

Towards the end of the war in 1918 the shortage of front line troops was so acute that the 2nd Pioneers were detailed to fight as infantrymen at Montbrehain, on 5 October, in what proved to be the last action fought by the AIF in the war. Storer was returning after the successful advance when he was hit and killed by a high explosive shell. He was 22. Five other men also died. Most witnesses attributed his death to 'concussion' as no mark could be seen on his body, but one witness stated that there was a small wound in his back where a shrapnel fragment had entered his body. It was also noted that he had been wearing the ribbon of the Military Medal on his jacket, which had been awarded to him in August 'for coolness, determination, devotion to duty and absolute disregard for danger'. The dead were buried by relieving American troops the following day. The battalion held a memorial service for those who had been lost on 13 October. Storer received a posthumous bar to his Military Medal for 'courage under fire'.

Storer's body was not recovered for burial in a military cemetery after the war and his name is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial. His eldest brother, 'Harry' Storer, had been killed at Gueudecourt in February 1917. A third brother, Thomas, born in 1903, was too young to serve. This commemorative plaque was sent to John Storer's father, William, in November 1922.