The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (2153) Lance Corporal Thomas Gregory, 20th Australian Infantry Battalion, 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 Charis May, the story for this day was on (2153) Lance Corporal Thomas Gregory, 20th Australian Infantry Battalion, First World War.

2153 Lance Corporal Thomas Gregory, 20th Battalion, AIF
DOW 5 May 1916
Photograph: P08624.052

Story delivered 6 December 2016

Today we remember and pay tribute to Lance Corporal Thomas Gregory.

Thomas Gregory was born around 1880 in Chichester, England. He served with the British forces for two years during the Boer War and a few years later had migrated to Australia and was employed as an ironworker in the Clyde Engineering Works.

Gregory enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in April 1915. As both of his parents had died before the outbreak of war, he listed Annie Speers as his next of kin, and before he left for overseas service the two had married.

Private Gregory left Australia for active service overseas on 30 September 1915 with the 4th reinforcements to the 20th Battalion. He arrived on the Gallipoli peninsula in November, just in time to leave with the evacuating forces the next month. In Egypt during the first months of 1916 he was promoted to lance corporal, and continued training before being sent on to France to fight on the Western Front.

The 20th Battalion’s first experience of the front line was in a quiet sector around the French village of Bois Grenier in a part of the line known as the Bridoux Salient. Even here the front line was a dangerous place to be, and the men of the 20th Battalion came under intermittent sniper and artillery fire.

On 3 May 1916, two days before the battalion would come under attack from a German raiding party, three men were wounded by this desultory fire. One was Lance Corporal Thomas Gregory. He was admitted to a nearby casualty clearing station with multiple gunshot wounds to the head and arm. Two days later he died of his wounds. He was 36 years old.

When Gregory’s wife wrote to military authorities requesting some information she concluded her letter by saying, “though feeling my loss very much, I am proud to say he never shirked his duty, having given his life for his king and his country”. However, Annie Gregory died in 1919, and as Thomas’s parents had died before the war, his medals went unclaimed. Today he lies in Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension Nord. His headstone has no epitaph.

Thomas Gregory’s name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among more than 60,000 Australians who died while serving in the First World War. His 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 Lance Corporal Thomas Gregory, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Dr Meleah Hampton
Historian, Military History Section