The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (3306) Private Reginald Philip Thompson, 4th Australian Infantry 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 Richard Cruise, the story for this day was on (3306) Private Reginald Philip Thompson, 4th Australian Infantry Battalion, AIF, First World War.

3306 Private Reginald Philip Thompson, 4th Australian Infantry Battalion, AIF
KIA 19 August 1916

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Reginald Philip Thompson.

Reginald Philip Thompson was born on 16 October 1896 to blacksmith Richard Rudd Thompson and his wife Elizabeth of the Sydney suburb of Newtown. Reginald was the sixth of nine children, eight of whom survived infancy. “Reg”, as he was known, attended Camdenville Public School in Newtown, and after leaving school worked as a farrier.

Thompson was keen to join the war effort, and enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in August 1915. He gave his age as just over 21, when in fact he was 18. He trained in Australia for four months before embarking in December 1915 on the transport ship Suevic. The ship docked in Egypt in February 1916, and Thompson joined the 4th Australian Infantry Battalion at the Australian Army camp at Tel-el-Kebir. He undertook a further month’s training in Egypt before sailing for Marseilles in late March.

Once in France, Thompson and the 4th Battalion were taken by train to the large Commonwealth camp at Etaples on the northern coast. From there, they marched to the Somme sector of the Western Front.

The first engagement on the Western Front for the 4th Battalion was at the remains of the French village of Pozieres. During July 1916, the men marched towards the front line. On 23 July, the 1st Australian Division, of which the 4th Battalion was part, attacked and successfully took the high ground at Pozieres. The Germans made a determined counter-attack the next day, and began a heavy three-day bombardment of the village, but the Australians held the ground. Thompson and the men of the 4th Battalion were relieved on 27 July. Their battalion alone had suffered 421 casualties, including 72 killed. This represented about half of their full strength.

In August, the 4th Battalion returned to the front line, this time in support of an assault on a ruined farmhouse known as Mouquet Farm, just north-west of Pozieres. Thompson and his unit relieved the 51st Australian Infantry Battalion on the 16th of August. The Germans defended their position around the farm with machine-guns and artillery barrages. During the night of 19 August 1916, the 4th Battalion was relieved. As Thompson moved back to a reserve area, his unit came under heavy German bombardment and he was killed. He was two months shy of his twentieth birthday.

Two of Thompson’s older brothers also fought in the First World War. Gunner Bernard Rudd Thompson was killed at the Second Battle of Bullecourt in May 1917. Only ten days later his older brother, Private Richard Thompson, was killed while carrying out a trench raid in Belgium.

Reg Thompson’s comrades buried his body on the battlefield, and the whereabouts of his grave are now unknown. His name is inscribed on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial in France, alongside nearly 11,000 other Australians killed in the First World War who have no known grave. He was survived in Australia by his father and five siblings, Phoebe, Henry, Philip, Lillian, and Tasman.

Private Reginald Philip Thompson is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among more than 60,000 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 Reginald Philip Thompson, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Thomas Rogers
Historian, Military History Section