The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (1275) Private Sydney Albert Pickering, 5th 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 Greg Kimball, the story for this day was on (1275) Private Sydney Albert Pickering, 5th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

1275 Private Sydney Albert Pickering, 5th Battalion, AIF
KIA 25 April 1915
Story delivered 6 July 2018

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Sydney Pickering who was killed while fighting on Gallipoli during the First World War.

Sydney Albert Pickering was born in 1895 and was one of 12 children of Alfred and Ellen Pickering of Stawell in Victoria’s Illawarra region. Known to his family and friends as “Syd”, he attended school locally and worked as a farm labourer in the years before the war.

He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in Melbourne in October 1914, and after a period of training at Broadmeadows camp, embarked for Egypt with a reinforcement group for the 5th Battalion. By the time he arrived, the 5th Battalion was busy training in preparation for offensive operations. It formed part of the Australian and New Zealand force that was drawn into Allied plans to force a passage through the Dardanelles to knock Ottoman Turkey out of the war. In an effort to control the vital waterway, British and French troops made a series of landings along the Gallipoli peninsula with the intention of pressing inland and capturing the high ground to gain control of the defences that lined the Dardanelles waterway.

Pickering landed at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915, forming part of the second wave attack that came ashore at North Beach around 6 am. The battalion pushed inland into the steep, precipitous terrain to reinforce troops of the 1st Brigade in the area that became known as 400 Plateau. As the 5th Battalion pressed inland, they were engaged by sporadic rifle and artillery fire from the Ottoman defenders who inflicted a heavy toll. Such was the confused nature of the fighting in those first days on Gallipoli that the dead and wounded simply disappeared into the steep gullies and ravines of the heights above Anzac Cove.

Sydney Pickering was listed as missing in the days following the landing. His mother wrote to the Defence Department trying to determine the whereabouts of her missing son, but there was no further news until returned soldiers told Pickering’s family that he had been seen wounded on Anzac Cove ready to be evacuated for further medical treatment. As the authorities had no record that he had been admitted to hospital, the report could not be verified.

It was not until October 1916, after the Australians had withdrawn from Gallipoli and were in the midst of fighting on the Western Front, that a court of inquiry determined that Sydney Pickering had been killed in action at the Gallipoli landing on 25 April 1915.

Aged 20 at the time of his death, his body was never recovered from the Gallipoli battlefield. Today his name is listed on the Lone Pine Memorial, along with 5,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers killed on Gallipoli who have no known grave.

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

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

Aaron Pegram
Historian, Military History Section