The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (2016) Corporal Walter Stanley Dawe, 32nd 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 , the story for this day was on (2016) Corporal Walter Stanley Dawe, 32nd Battalion, AIF, First World War.

2016 Corporal Walter Stanley Dawe, 32nd Battalion, AIF
KIA 20 February 1918

Today we remember and pay tribute to Corporal Walter Stanley Dawe.

Walter Dawe was born on 4 May 1889, the son of Richard and Elizabeth Dawe of Kadina, on the Yorke Peninsula. His father died when he was three, and his mother when he was five. It is not certain who raised Walter, although it was likely to have been one or more of his much older siblings.

Walter grew up in Kadina and went on to work as a carpenter. He and his brothers took a great deal of interest in the local church, and Walter began to take on circuit preaching duties in connection with the Methodist Church at Port Neill, Smoky Bay, Tailem Bend, Meadows, and other districts of South Australia. Eventually he undertook a course at the Methodist Training Home in the Adelaide suburb of Brighton, and was accepted as a candidate for the ministry. He studied further at Prince Alfred College, and in 1915 received his first appointment as probationary minister at Morgan on the Murray River.

Walter Dawe did not spend long in Morgan, enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force that same year. He underwent a period of training in Australia before leaving for active service with reinforcements to the 32nd Battalion in February 1916. Private Dawe was first sent to Egypt where his health failed and he struggled with gastrointestinal complaints. He remained in hospital for some weeks after the bulk of the AIF left for France, and was eventually sent to England to finish his recovery.

While in England, Dawe took on the temporary rank of sergeant and worked in training battalions on Salisbury Plain. He did not reach the battlefields of the Western Front until August 1917, having reverted to corporal. In September he took part in the battle of Polygon Wood, a successful operation in which the battalion took all its objectives.

Dawe again took time away with illness and another training course before rejoining his battalion in the trenches near Warneton near the Belgian border.

The 32nd Battalion diary lists 20 February as “a quiet day on both sides.” A small note in the margin indicates that five other ranks became casualties. One of those men was Corporal Walter Stanley Dawe. No indication remains of the manner of his death.

Today Corporal Walter Dawe is buried in the Messines Ridge British Cemetery. With no parents to write an epitaph, his grave has none. He seems to have been quietly forgotten, not even being mentioned in his brothers’ obituaries. Walter Stanley Dawe was 28 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 Corporal Walter Stanley Dawe, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Meleah Hampton
Historian, Military History Section