The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (18118) Private Henry James Bartlett, 4th Australian Light Horse Field Ambulance, 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 Craig Berelle, the story for this day was on (18118) Private Henry James Bartlett, 4th Australian Light Horse Field Ambulance, AIF, First World War.

18118 Private Henry James Bartlett, 4th Australian Light Horse Field Ambulance, AIF
Died of illness 28 October 1918

Today we remember and pay tribute to Henry James Bartlett.

Henry James Bartlett, known as “Harry” to his family and friends, was born on 23 February 1891 in the Sydney suburb of Manly, the eldest of eight children born to Henry and Elizabeth Bartlett. After Harry’s birth, the Bartlett family moved to Auburn, in Sydney’s west. Bartlett attended Christian Brothers School in Lewisham, and Marist Brothers School in Paddington, and in 1907 began studying for the priesthood at St Patrick’s College in Manly. In 1915 he left St Patrick’s and began working as an insurance clerk.

Bartlett enlisted into the Australian Imperial Force on the 9th of February 1917 at Victoria Barracks in Sydney, and days later transferred to the Field General Hospital in Liverpool for training to serve in a medical capacity. He spent the next eight months taking classes in vital skills such as dressing wounds, as well as infantry training, stretcher-bearing and field cooking. His training complete, Bartlett sailed from Melbourne on the 2nd of November 1917 bound for the war in Palestine, where he would join the 4th Australian Light Horse Field Regiment.

After the end of the campaign on Gallipoli in 1915, the majority of the Australian Imperial Force went to fight the war on the Western Front in France and Belgium. The bulk of Australia’s mounted forces, however, went to Egypt to defend the Suez Canal against Ottoman attacks. Following the victory over Turkish forces at Romani in August 1916, the Anzac Mounted Division joined British forces and advanced into Ottoman territory. They entered Palestine in 1917 and continued into Jordan and Syria in 1918.

Bartlett disembarked from his transport ship at Moascar on the Suez Canal on 10 December 1917, and within a month joined his unit at Belah, to the south of Gaza. The 4th Light Horse Field Ambulance would spend the rest of the year providing medical assistance to British and Australian forces as they pushed north against the Ottomans from Jerusalem towards Damascus in Syria.

Conditions were difficult for the troops, who endured hot desert conditions and dust storms, and faced the constant threat of endemic disease.

On 20 April 1918, Bartlett was hospitalised with an undiagnosed illness, the symptoms of which included poor sleep, sore joints, the shivers and a fever. His illness was so severe that he was eventually transferred to the Australian General Hospital in Port Said, Egypt, for recovery, and he did not rejoin his unit until the first of June.

Bartlett had been back with his unit for less than a month when, while at Solomon’s Pools, to the south of Bethlehem, he was again hospitalised, this time with an infected foot. He did not rejoin his unit until early August 1918.

Throughout August, September and October, Bartlett and the 4th Light Horse Field Ambulance moved northward with Anzac and British forces fighting their way north from Jerusalem towards the important city of Damascus, which they seized in late September.

On 18 October 1918, while encamped at Kuneitra, Bartlett was again hospitalised with a serious illness, later diagnosed to be a combination of malaria and pneumonia. He was taken north-east to the English hospital in Damascus for treatment, but died on the 28th of October 1918. He was 27 years old. He died just two weeks before the armistice of 11 November1918 which brought an end to the First World War.

Today his remains lie buried at the Damascus Commonwealth War Cemetery in Syria, and his name is included in the list of fallen Manly sons at the War Memorial on The Corso at Manly, and on the Roll of Honour at the RSL Club in Auburn.

Private Henry James Bartlett 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 Henry James Bartlett, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

David Sutton
Historian, Military History Section