The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of Captain Clive Emerson Connelly, 14th Battalion, 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 , the story for this day was on Captain Clive Emerson Connelly, 14th Battalion, First World War.

Captain Clive Emerson Connelly, 14th Battalion
KIA 9 September 1918

Today we remember and pay tribute to Captain Clive Emerson Connelly.

Clive Connelly was born on 29 May 1885, the eldest of three children born to Jefferson and Frances Connelly of Bendigo, Victoria. Clive’s father was a prominent lawyer in Bendigo, as well as city’s first locally-born – and youngest – mayor. Clive’s father died unexpectedly in 1892, when Clive was seven years old. Clive and his younger brother Eric followed closely in their father’s footsteps, both in their choice of law as a profession, and in their close association with the military.

Clive Connelly was educated at Bendigo Grammar School and Carlton Grammar School, and went on to become a barrister and solicitor in Bendigo. He was a prominent member of the Sandhurst Rowing Club and, like his father, was president of the local branch of the Australian Natives Association. In 1911 he married Vivienne Jackson, and the following year their only child, Jeff, was born. Connelly served with the senior cadets, and later saw five years’ commissioned service with the militia and citizens’ forces.

Clive Connelly enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force shortly after the outbreak of war in 1914. He and his brother left Australia later that year as commissioned officers – Clive as a captain with the 14th Battalion, and Eric as a second lieutenant with the 7th Battalion.

The 14th Battalion began landing on Gallipoli on the evening of 25 of April 1915. Clive Connelly was the battalion transport officer, and was responsible for getting his men into the boats to row ashore, and taking the wounded on board from the returning boats. He carried on doing this all night before going ashore with the last boat load of the 14th Battalion. He wrote, “It was sad, and came as a great shock to us to see so many wounded … but, by gum, the behaviour of the wounded made you proud to be Australian … Groaning was scarcely ever heard, and the men gave mighty little display of the suffering that was going on.”

Connelly was sent forward to help establish the perimeter in the days that followed the landing. About a week later he was in the forward line with Major Steel, who was keen to conduct a bayonet charge to clear a trench of what he thought was the Turkish garrison. Connelly went forward to have a look at the objective himself, and heard from an officer that the trench to be charged was “either occupied by New Zealanders or unoccupied”. After hearing Steel say, “get ready to charge”, he came running to stop him. The men were in the trench with their bayonets fixed, and Connelly landed on a bayonet as he entered the trench. The bayonet went through his leg at the knee, and Connelly was forced to alternately slide down the hill and hobble towards the dressing station. Although he tried to avoid evacuation, his wound was too severe, and he was sent to Egypt to recover.

Clive wrote home to tell this story, concluding his letter by saying, “I am glad I am here doing my insignificant bit, but I cannot say that I shall be sorry when the job is successfully finished.”

Eric Connelly had also been wounded shortly after the landing, and the brothers were able to see each other while recovering in Cairo.

Three days after his return to the Gallipoli peninsula in late August, Captain Clive Connelly became a member of a party assigned to the attack on Hill 60. His commanding officer later wrote, “I formed three lines, placing Captain Connelly in charge of the first line. In less than ten minutes poor Clive was killed, shot in three places, and about 50 per cent of his line … Owing to a difficulty of the ground, and the effect of the enemy’s rifle and machine gun fire, very few reached the trenches.” Although Connelly was still alive when they brought him in, he died shortly afterwards and was buried before dawn.

Clive’s brother Eric became a staff officer with the 3rd Division in France, and was killed when a German aircraft dropped a bomb on his tent in 1918. Clive Connelly’s lonely grave in the forward lines was lost in later fighting, and today he is commemorated on the Lone Pine Memorial. He was 30 years old.

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 Captain Clive Emerson Connelly, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Meleah Hampton
Historian, Military History Section