The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (2356) Private Thomas Kitchen, 3rd 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 Richard Cruise, the story for this day was on (2356) Private Thomas Kitchen, 3rd Battalion, First World War.

2356 Private Thomas Kitchen, 3rd Battalion
KIA 2 March 1917
Story delivered 1 March 2018

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Thomas Kitchen.

Thomas Henry Kitchen was born in 1892, one of five children of Henry and Alice Kitchen of the Sydney suburb of Waterloo. He attended Cleveland Street Public School and afterwards worked as a labourer in nearby Redfern.

Kitchen enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in May 1915. After two months’ training at Liverpool Military Camp he embarked for Egypt with a reinforcement group for the 3rd Battalion. He joined his battalion in the trenches at Lone Pine on Gallipoli in early September, before it was withdrawn to Lemnos for several weeks’ rest and recuperation. The battalion returned to Gallipoli in late October, and remained there until the evacuation two months later.

Kitchen returned to Egypt in December 1915, where the AIF underwent a period of reorganisation and training in preparation for its departure for the Western Front. Sailing for France in March 1916, the 3rd Battalion spent several weeks in the relatively quiet “Nursery Sector” near the town of Armentières on the Franco-Belgian border. There the battalion participated in a number of trench raids before moving off to the Somme in early July. On 23 July 1916, troops of the 3rd Battalion formed part of the 1st Division’s capture of Pozières village. They held it against repeated German counter-attacks and a concentrated bombardment that crashed down on the village. Kitchen received a shrapnel wound to the hand in the fighting at Pozières, and was evacuated to England for a period of hospitalisation and recovery.

When Kitchen returned to France three months later, he spent several weeks posted to the 53rd Battalion before rejoining the 3rd Battalion in its winter positions near Gueudecourt in December 1916. Here, the 3rd Battalion spent one of the coldest winters on record, where the mud, frostbite, and trench foot proved far greater enemies than the German Army. The 3rd Battalion participated in the advance that followed when the Germans abandoned their Somme positions early in the New Year. By March 1917, the battalion were occupying a thin defensive screen by Ligny-Thilloy near the town of Bapaume.

Early on the morning of 2 March 1917, German troops conducted a raid on the Australian positions outside Ligny-Thilloy, and succeeded in killing and capturing a number of men of the 3rd Battalion. Among the dead was Thomas Kitchen, who seems to have been posted as a sentry for a nearby command post at the time of the raid. Aged 25 at the time of his death, Kitchen was buried near where he fell and was later interred nearby in the Warlencourt British Cemetery.

Thomas Kitchen is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among almost 62,000 Australians who died while serving in the First World War.

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

Aaron Pegram
Historian, Military History Section