The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (113) Trooper Gresley Tatlock Harper, 10th Australian Light Horse Regiment, 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 Richard Cruise, the story for this day was on (113) Trooper Gresley Tatlock Harper, 10th Australian Light Horse Regiment, First World War.

113 Trooper Gresley Tatlock Harper, 10th Australian Light Horse Regiment
KIA 7 August 1915
Photograph: P07183.001

Story delivered 7 August 2015

Today we remember and pay tribute to Trooper Gresley Tatlock Harper.

Gresley Harper was born on 16 February 1884, the third son of Charles and Fanny Harper of Guildford, Western Australia. His father was a prominent figure in Western Australia, and had variously been an explorer, pearler, farmer, and member of parliament. Charles’s interests in land, stock, education, society, and politics led him to engage in myriad projects from wheat breeding to journalism. He established the Guildford Grammar School, and Gresley became one of the school’s original students. He later went to Adelaide to attend St Peter’s College, and then to Trinity College at Melbourne University, where he studied law. Gresley played grade cricket in Western Australia with his brother, Wilfred, and was a popular member of the South Perth Lawn Tennis Club.

After being admitted to the Victorian Bar, Gresley returned to Western Australia and was admitted to the bar there in 1912, the same year his father died. He was practicing as a barrister in Perth when the First World War began. On 5 October 1914 Gresley, Wilfred, and their cousin Geoffrey Lukin went together to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force. Gresley and Wilfred were given consecutive service numbers, and all three were posted to the 10th Light Horse Regiment.

The Harpers left Alexandria with their regiment in May 1915, bound for the Gallipoli peninsula. Gresley wrote:

It was very exciting when we first landed on [the] Gallipoli Peninsula … The Destroyer took us within a mile of the mainland where we embarked into an open boat and were towed ashore by a launch. All the time we were landing the Turkish batteries were pouring shells at us which fell in the water around us.

Over the next few weeks the men spent so much time with their picks and shovels that Gresley and his mates joked that on their return to Australia they would apply for work on the Transcontinental Railway and would “rush through it in double-quick time”.

The 10th Light Horse was quickly put into positions around Quinn’s Post. Gresley wrote home with the following description of life on Gallipoli:

Our life ever since has been spent in one of these dug-outs. Intermittently every day shrapnel comes into our little valley and we have to scuttle into our dug-out, sometimes leaving our rations behind, bolting out to recover them immediately a shell bursts harmlessly, and back to cover before its successor arrives. It had its humours at first, but the novelty has now gone, and has given place to a sense of anxiety and annoyance.

Gresley Harper was wounded on 29 May when the Turks attacked his position. He spent some time in hospital in Malta recovering before returning to the peninsula.

In early August 1915 the 10th Light Horse Regiment was ordered to prepare to make an attack on Turkish trenches at The Nek. On 7 August, following an ineffectual artillery barrage, the 8th Light Horse charged towards the Turkish trenches and was mown down by machine-gun fire. Despite the many casualties sustained in the first two waves of light horsemen, the men of the 10th Light Horse Regiment were ordered to carry out their orders immediately and capture the trenches. Nearly every man was killed or wounded. A fourth wave, again undertaken by the 10th Light Horse, advanced with the same result.

Gresley Harper and his brother, Wilfred, were two of those who rushed out of the trenches into certain death. Neither of their bodies was ever identified, and today they have no known grave. They are both commemorated on Gallipoli on the Lone Pine Memorial to the Missing, as well as here on the Roll of Honour to my right, among more than 60,000 Australians who died during the First World War.

Gresley Harper’s photograph is displayed today beside the Pool of Reflection.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Trooper Gresley Tatlock Harper, his brother Trooper Wilfred Lukin Harper, and all those Australians who have given their lives in the service of our nation.

Dr Meleah Hampton
Historian, Military History Section