The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (1470) Private Norman Leslie Brumm, 29th 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 Gerard Pratt, the story for this day was on, (1470) Private Norman Leslie Brumm, 29th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

1470 Private Norman Leslie Brumm, 29th Battalion, AIF
KIA 19 July 1916

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Norman Leslie Brumm.

Norman Leslie Brumm was born in 1897, the youngest son of Michael and Mary Brumm of Albury, New South Wales. He attended the local Albury Superior Public School, and later worked as a pottery hand and labourer. He was a keen swimmer, and in 1909 won the Albury Superior Public School Swimming Championship.

Brumm enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 28 June 1915 when he was 18 years old, and began training with the Depot Battalion, and the reinforcements of the 6th Infantry Battalion. Many men found the transition from civilian to military life difficult, and at some point in 1915 Brumm deserted and abandoned his training. He re-enlisted, however, on 9 November and re-took his oath. He joined the reinforcements of the 29th Infantry Battalion at Broadmeadows and the very next day sailed from Melbourne aboard the transport ship Ascanius for service overseas.

He arrived in Egypt early in December 1915 where he continued his training and was taken on strength of the 29th Battalion on 3 March 1916. This unit formed part of the 8th Brigade of the 5th Australian Division.

On 16 June he sailed with his unit from Alexandria in Egypt to Marseilles, France. Soon after arriving he transferred north to Hazebrouk, near the French border with Belgium.

On 19 July 1916, Brumm and the 29th Battalion participated in the battle of Fromelles, the first major battle for Australian forces on the Western Front. Australian and British forces attacked a bulge, or salient, in the German lines known as the “Sugar Loaf”, the British from the west; the Australians from the north.

The attack commenced at 6 o’clock in the evening after a seven-hour long artillery bombardment of the German lines. The Australian troops climbed out of no-man’s-land into the German artillery and machine-gun fire, one solder later described the ordeal by saying, “the novelty of being a soldier wore off in about five seconds, it was like a bloody butcher’s shop”.

Brumm and the 29th Battalion formed part of a later wave of the initial attack, and entered the lines after 8 pm. As Brumm and his platoon were in the heat of battle at Fleurbaix, to the north of Fromelles, he was killed by machine-gun or artillery fire.

He was 19 years old, and had been in France for less than a month.

Brumm was one of nine soldiers of his platoon to be killed at Fromelles, there were only two survivors. Australian forces as a whole lost over 5,500 men killed, wounded, or missing.

In the chaotic fighting, Brumm was originally reported as missing in action. However, German authorities later found his identity disk and confirmed that he had been killed. His body was not found on the battlefield, and his name was placed on the VC Corner Australian Cemetery Memorial, which records the names of those soldiers killed at Fromelles who have no known grave.

In 2008, a mass grave containing the bodies of over 250 Australian and British soldiers killed at Fromelles was discovered at an area of the former battlefield known as Pheasant Wood. Brumm’s body was successfully identified, and he now lies in the Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery.

His 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 Norman Leslie Brumm, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

David Sutton
Historian, Military History Section