The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (1615) Private Roy Hardman, 15th Battalion, AIF, 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 Sharon Bown, the story for this day was on (1615) Private Roy Hardman, 15th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

1615 Private Roy Hardman, 15th Battalion, AIF
DOW 5 May 1915

Story delivered 19 December 2017

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Roy Hardman.

Roy Hardman was born in 1893, one of ten children of Tasman and Isabella Hardman of the Tasmanian town of Brighton, just north of Hobart.

Roy attended Brighton State School before going on to work as a farmer in the area. His mother, Isabella, died when Roy was a young boy.

Roy Hardman enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in November 1914 and trained at Claremont Camp where he formed part of the 15th Battalion – a unit comprised mainly of Queenslanders, with a rifle company of Tasmanians. He completed his training with the battalion in Melbourne before sailing with the first AIF troopship convoy before Christmas. Originally destined for England, the convoy was diverted to Egypt following Ottoman Turkey’s entry into the war.

By April 1915, the Australian and New Zealand troops encamped in Egypt were drawn into Allied plans to force a passage through the Dardanelles in an effort to knock Ottoman Turkey out of the war. Hardman took part in the Gallipoli landings on 25 April 1915, coming ashore with the rest of the 4th Brigade later in the evening. Over the following days, the 15th Battalion was involved in defending Australian and New Zealand troops’ tenuous hold on the precipitous terrain against growing Turkish resistance. By the end of April, it was
defending a position known as Quinn’ Post on the heights above Pope’s Hill.

So close were the Australian and Turkish trenches at Quinn’s Post that the Turks dominated the position with rifle fire and frequently showered it with grenades. Roy was wounded in the stomach during one such engagement with the Turks on the morning of 5 May, just as the battalion was preparing to leave the front-line trenches. Stretcher bearers carried him down the rugged ridges of the Anzac beachhead from where he was taken aboard the hospital ship HMHS Gascon to be evacuated to Egypt. But he succumbed to his wounds the following morning. Aged just 21, Roy Hardman was buried at sea. Today he is listed on the Lone Pine Memorial, alongside 5,000 Australian and New Zealand troops who died fighting on Gallipoli with no known grave.

The First World War had a tremendous impact on the Hardman family. Roy’s younger brother, Bertie, died of illness while serving in France; and a third brother, Harry, was medically discharged from the AIF in 1918 following service on Gallipoli and the Western Front.

Roy Hardman’s name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among almost 62,000 Australians who died while serving in the First World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Private Roy Hardman, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.