The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (6320) Private Stanley Everard Stephens, 13th 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 Chris Widenbar, the story for this day was on (6320) Private Stanley Everard Stephens, 13th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

6320 Private Stanley Everard Stephens, 13th Battalion, AIF
KIA 11 April 1917
Story delivered 11 April 2018

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Stanley Everard Stephens.
Stanley Stephens was born in 1891, the eldest of two sons born to Harry and Effie Stephens of the Melbourne suburb of Richmond. The Stephens family moved to Darlinghurst when Stanley was young. After attending Double Bay State School and some involvement in naval cadets, he followed in his father’s footsteps and worked as a journalist on the Farmer and Settler newspaper.

Stephens was among the first Australians to enlist after Britain’s declaration of war against Germany, joining the Australian Naval Military and Expeditionary Force in Sydney in August 1914. The ANMEF was a separate military force from the Australian Imperial Force, raised with the sole purpose of dealing with the German colonies directly to Australia’s north. Sailing for Rabaul later that month, Stephens participated in the capture of German New Guinea, and spent the following six months at Madang before returning to Australia. He then tried to enlist in the AIF but was rejected on the basis of having contracted malaria. Meanwhile, Stanley Stephens’s younger brother Percy had enlisted, and his mother became the secretary of the 13th Battalion Comfort Fund.

Stephens returned to the Farmer and Settler newspaper and spent most of 1915 travelling the state and writing stories associated with the Australian war effort. In October, Stephens went to Gilgandra to cover the story of the recruitment march that intended to march to the AIF training camps in Sydney some 450 kilometres away. Stephens decided to join in, and was one of the 26 men who set off from Gilgandra on 10 October on their long march towards Sydney. By the time the march ended later that month, Stephens held the temporary rank of company sergeant major and the AIF had secured 263 volunteers from the Central West.

Stephens played an important role in promoting the march’s activities, which put him in good stead with the military authorities in the following months. Instead of going overseas with the rest of the marchers, Stephens remained in Australia where he attended a depot school for NCOs and underwent a period of training at Duntroon. After further training at Kiama Military Camp, Stephens finally left Australia for the training camps in England with a reinforcement group for the 13th Battalion in September 1916.

Stephens finally got to France in December 1916. He had arrived too late to take part in the fighting on the Somme, but joined the 13th Battalion as it occupied British positions between the villages of Flers and Gueudecourt. Here the Australians endured the coldest winter in Europe in well over 40 years. Stephens was wounded when the battalion was being relieved from a position known as Grease Trench, he returned to the battalion around a week later, and reverted to the rank of private.

German troops soon abandoned their Somme defences and withdrew to a formidable series of defences in the Arras sector known as the Hindenburg Line. The 13th Battalion took part in the advance that followed, skirmishing with German rearguards that aimed to delay the Australian advance. The Australians re-established contact with German troops near the village of Bullecourt, where on 11 April 1917, the 13th Battalion formed part of the 4th Division’s attack on the Hindenburg Line. The battalion suffered exceptionally heavy casualties in a costly and unsuccessful action. Among them was Stanley Stephens, who was listed as missing in action in the days after the battle.

Some eyewitnesses claim to have seen Stephens wounded in the right shoulder by a German shell, while others claimed that they saw him being led away by the Germans as a prisoner of war – neither story could be verified. Several months passed without any further news of Stephens’s whereabouts, which led a court of inquiry to determine that Stanley Stephens had been killed in action on 11 April 1917. Aged 26 at the time of his death, Stephens’s body was never recovered from the battlefield. He is listed among the 10,738 Australians whose names are commemorated on the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux in France.

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

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

Aaron Pegram
Historian, Military History Section