The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of Lieutenant Arthur Elton Tandy, 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, 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 Lieutenant Arthur Elton Tandy, 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, First World War.

Lieutenant Arthur Elton Tandy, 1st Australian Tunnelling Company
KIA 25 April 1917


Today we remember and pay tribute to Lieutenant Arthur Elton Tandy.

Arthur Elton Tandy was born on 29 October 1882, the son of William and Eliza Tandy of Maitland, New South Wales. Arthur attended school at Bolwarra in east Maitland, Maitland High School, and later Sydney Technical College. Described as extremely intelligent, after working in the public works department, he embarked on a career in mining. Tandy worked in the mines at Ballarat, where he attended the School of Mines and qualified as a mining engineer. He also studied technical drawing, and became an associate member of the Institute of Mining Engineers. He later worked as a mining and railway surveyor for Mount Elliot and Mount Oxide Mines Ltd at Cloncurry, in north Queensland.

Tandy’s father passed away in 1899 and his mother in 1911. In 1913, he married Isabella.

Tandy enlisted to serve Australia in the First World War on the 9th of November 1915. Utilising his extensive mining experience, Tandy joined the Australian Mining Corps, with whom he trained as a provisional lieutenant in the Mining Corps in Enogerra. He then travelled to Sydney for officer training, and on 20 February 1916 embarked on the transport ship Ulysses for the war on the Western Front.
After arriving in France in May 1916, Tandy served with the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company at Armentieres and Bailleul near the Franco-Belgian border. Tunnelling companies played an important role in the war by digging and maintaining extensive tunnel systems below no man’s land and enemy trenches. The mines dug by men such as Tandy could be filled with explosives, and detonated prior to a major attack. It was terrifying and dangerous work. The men worked in appalling conditions characterised by mud, poor air quality and mine collapses, and often had to work in complete silence so as not to alert nearby German miners to their presence.

In June 1916, Tandy was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. He was described as popular with the men in his unit, and was known as “the big soldier”, on account of being over 6 feet tall. An unconfirmed report states that at some point in 1916 Tandy was Mentioned in Despatches for saving some of his comrades during a gas attack. According to newspaper reports, Tandy dismissed his heroic actions as merely “saving a few of our chaps at the expense of a headache”.

In October 1916, Tandy and the 1st Tunnelling Company moved north to the Ypres sector of Belgium, where they would replace the 3rd Canadian Tunnelling Company in the mines below a ridge known as Hill 60, near Poperinghe. This new area of operations was considerably different to where they had previously served in northern France. The mines were deeper and more extensive, and Australia’s official historian Charles Bean later described the action there as being “incomparably more intense”. Tandy and the 1st Tunnelling Company were tasked with keeping the vast mining sector intact, as well as improving draining and ventilation. The mines were being dug in preparation for a major detonation at Messines which in June 1917 would completely destroy German defences and lead to a major victory.

Tandy wrote regularly to his wife. In a letter sent while he was in Belgium wrote, he expressed his feeling that he and his comrades would not make it through another major offensive because of the dangerous nature of their work. His prediction was tragically accurate.

On 25 April 1917, two years after the first Anzac landing at Gallipoli, Tandy was in a dugout in the trenches a Poperinghe with other men when a large explosion caused the dugout to collapse, killed nine of the occupants, including Arthur Tandy, who was 35 years old.

There are two accounts of the cause of the explosion. One account states that Tandy and his fellow officers were inspecting a sensitive detonator which accidentally set off high explosives and killed the men instantly. Other accounts state that the dugout was struck by a heavy German mortar during a period of particularly heavy shelling.

Today Tandy’s remains lie buried in the Poperinghe New Military Cemetery in Belgium, where nearly 700 soldiers of the First World War now lie.

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 Lieutenant Arthur Elton Tandy, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

David Sutton
Historian, Military History Section