The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (318) Sergeant Thomas Joseph Maxwell, 7th 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 Craig Berelle, the story for this day was on (318) Sergeant Thomas Joseph Maxwell, 7th Light Horse Regiment, First World War.

318 Sergeant Thomas Joseph Maxwell, 7th Light Horse Regiment
KIA 7 May 1918
Story delivered 21 April 2018

Today we remember and pay tribute to Sergeant Thomas Joseph Maxwell.

Thomas Maxwell was born in 1886, one of 12 children of Thomas and Mary Maxwell of Queanbeyan, New South Wales. The Maxwells were a pioneering family of the Canberra region who had a long-standing association with the Brindabellas. Thomas’s mother, Mary, had worked for the Cunningham family, who owned Tuggeranong Homestead, where Charles Bean would later write the first volumes of the official history of Australia in the Great War. After attending school at Tuggeranong and Tharwa, Thomas worked as a stockman, and in the years before the First World War, was the overseer of Peppercorn Station on the upper Murrumbidgee River. To those who knew him, Thomas was “a fine type of Australian youth, a splendid horseman and all-round sport”.

Thomas enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in Sydney in September 1914, where medical examiners found that he had previously been shot through the left side and arm. After a period of training at Roseberry Park, Thomas embarked for Egypt in December as an original member of the 7th Light Horse Regiment.
The light horse were considered unsuitable for the initial operations on Gallipoli, but were deployed without their horses to reinforce the infantry. The 7th landed on Gallipoli in late May 1915, where they held the line on the far right of the Anzac beachhead. Thomas rose through the ranks quickly, and by October held the temporary rank of sergeant. He was knocked down by Turkish shrapnel and sustained a slight head wound, but remained on duty. In a letter home, he remarked wryly that a more serious wound would have bought him a spell from the trenches.

The 7th Light Horse remained on Gallipoli until the evacuation, when it returned to Egypt and formed part of the ANZAC Mounted Division. Thomas reverted back to the rank of private, but remained an experienced member of his squadron. In April 1916, the regiment joined British forces in the defence of the Suez Canal, and in August, fought at Romani. From then until the end of the war, the 7th Light Horse Regiment participated in the advance that pursued the Ottoman Turks across the Sinai Desert and into Palestine. Throughout 1917, Thomas was involved in some of the most notable actions of the Palestine campaign. The regiment fought at Gaza in March and April, and after Beersheba, was involved in the capture of Jerusalem. The focus of British operations then shifted to the Jordan Valley, where in early 1918, the regiment was involved in the capture of Jericho and in bitter fighting at Amman and Es Salt.

After months of heavy fighting, the regiment was enjoying a well-earned rest outside the town of Jericho. Very early on the morning of 7 May 1918, the 7th Light Horse lines were bombed by a number of German aircraft, which killed eight men, wounded ten, and caused a number of casualties among the horses. Among the dead was Thomas Maxwell, who was 31 years old. He was buried at the military cemetery at Jerusalem. A small epitaph chosen by his grieving parents appears on his headstone: “One of war’s victims, one of God’s own”.

Thomas Maxwell 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 Sergeant Thomas Joseph Maxwell, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Aaron Pegram
Senior Historian, Military History Section