The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (2371) Sapper John Robert Brockley, 3rd Australian Tunnelling Company, 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 Stuart baines, the story for this day was on (2371) Sapper John Robert Brockley, 3rd Australian Tunnelling Company, First World War.


**Due to technical issues this recording is of poor quality and not for public display.**

2371 Sapper John Robert Brockley, 3rd Australian Tunnelling Company
KIA 27 November 1916
Photograph: H05847

Story delivered 28 November 2013

Today we remember and pay tribute to Sapper John Robert Brockley of the 3rd Australian Tunnelling Company, whose photograph is displayed today beside the Pool of Reflection.

John Brockley - often known as "Bob" - was born in Sandhurst, Victoria, in 1867. He grew up in Bendigo, where he attended the Central State School. He became a plumber, and at the age of 18 he moved to Western Australia, where he worked in the mines, and as an iron worker. In 1901 John Brockley married Mary Gilder in Boulder, near Kalgoorlie. A year later their only daughter, Alice Jane, was born. Mary died some time afterwards.

Brockley enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in January 1916 and entered the Mining Corps. His daughter Alice went to live with his sister, Mrs Malloy, in Bendigo. He gave his age as 47 at the time of his enlistment, but was in fact 49. He was lucky to be accepted given he was too old by the enlistment standards of the day.

Brockley arrived in France after a period of training in Australia and England in September 1916. In the months following his arrival the 3rd Australian Tunnelling Company was involved in a number of defensive and offensive mining operations in the north of France. This involved constructing new galleries and shafts to enable the Allies to lay explosive charges deep under the German lines. But because the Germans were doing much the same thing from the other side it also involved building listening galleries for men to sit silently, listening to the work of the Germans to try to find their mines before it was too late.

In early November 1916 the company moved to the Hill 70 Sector near Loos, and continued their dangerous work. On 27 November Sapper Brockley was in a party working on a mine when a German mine that had been secretly placed nearby was blown up. Despite fevered rescue efforts, at least twenty men of the 3rd Tunnelling Company, including Brockley, were killed in the blast. It seems that Brockley was quite close to the blast and was killed by the shock of the explosions. Others were suffocated in collapsed tunnels or by gases generated by the blast.

John Brockley was buried in France near his comrades, just short of his 50th birthday. His daughter, now an orphan, was raised by her aunts in Bendigo and later married an American and moved to California.

His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, along with more than 60,000 others from the First World War.

This is but one of the many stories of courage and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Sapper John Robert Brockley, and all of those Australians who have given their lives in the service of our nation.