The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (326) Corporal Wilfred John Mann Hughes, Australian Corps HTMB, 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 Nicholas Schmidt, the story for this day was on (326) Corporal Wilfred John Mann Hughes, Australian Corps HTMB, First World War.

326 Corporal Wilfred John Mann Hughes, Australian Corps HTMB
KIA 10 April 1918
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 20 November 2014

Today we remember and pay tribute to Corporal Wilfred John Mann Hughes.

Wilfred Hughes was born in 1895 in Glenelg, South Australia, to John Bristow Hughes and Edith Mary Mann. He attended the Reverend Donald Kerr’s school in Glenelg, and went on to study at St Peter’s Collegiate School. He took an interest in chemistry and was studying it at university on the outbreak of war.

Wilfred left university to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force on 5 February 1915 at the age of 19. He was posted to the 27th Battalion and went with them to Gallipoli. Shortly before the evacuation he was wounded in the hand and sent back to Egypt for treatment. In March 1916 Hughes arrived in France, but became seriously ill with bronchitis shortly afterwards and took some time to recover.

In June Hughes was transferred out of the infantry and into the trench mortars. He underwent an extended period of training and in February 1918 was posted to a battery of the heavy trench mortars.

In April 1918 Hughes’s battery was in position in Belgium when the Germans attacked and captured all six guns. One gun was being used to fire SOS rounds when a party of Germans started shooting at the Australian crew from 50 yards away. One man was killed and one badly wounded, but the remaining three managed to escape, taking wounded men with them. Corporal Hughes joined a small party under Captain J.B. Darling to take a medium trench mortar gun and use it to temporarily hold up the advancing Germans. One man was killed before they retreated, and on their return Captain Darling was badly wounded. Hughes proceeded to carry Captain Darling to safety, but was killed as he approached a nearby dressing station. Darling was later rescued by the last member of the party.

Two of Hughes’s younger brothers also served in the war. Leonard enlisted in November 1916 and was captured by the Germans, spending most of the war in prisoner-of-war camps. Percival enlisted three months after Wilfred’s death, but the war ended before he was sent overseas. Wilfred Hughes’s body was lost in the confusion of the German counter-attack and he has no known grave. He was 24 years old.

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 Corporal Wilfred John Mann Hughes, and all of those Australians who have given their lives in the service of our nation.

Meleah Hampton
Historian, Military History Section