The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (223) Sergeant Victor Wadsworth Ashworth, 4th ANZAC Camel 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 Craig Berelle, the story for this day was on (223) Sergeant Victor Wadsworth Ashworth, 4th ANZAC Camel Battalion, AIF, First World War.

223 Sergeant Victor Wadsworth Ashworth, 4th ANZAC Camel Battalion, AIF
KIA 7 November 1917

Today we remember and pay tribute to Sergeant Victor Wadsworth Ashworth.

Victor Ashworth was born in 1890 in Willcannia, a small town located within the Central Darling Shire in north-western New South Wales.

The eldest son of Robert and Edith Ashworth, he attended Pambula public school. Victor’s father was a school teacher, holding positions at Pambula on the Sapphire Coast, Bathurst, and Branxton in the Hunter Region.

Victor went to work as an accountant at the Dubbo branch of the Australian Bank of Commerce, where he was known as a promising athlete.

On 11 September 1914, Victor Ashworth enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force and was allotted to the 6th Light Horse Regiment.

While the Light Horse was considered unsuitable for operations on Gallipoli, the men were deployed without their horses to reinforce the infantry. The 2nd Light Horse Brigade landed in late May 1915 and was attached to the 1st Australian Division. The 6th Light Horse became responsible for a sector on the far right of the ANZAC line.

In mid-August 1915 Ashworth reported sick at Anzac Cove, suffering from diarrhoea. He was sent to Malta aboard a hospital ship, and from there travelled to England, where he received treatment and recuperated in Birmingham.
His recovery took some time, and it wasn’t until early March 1916 that he returned to duty. Landing in Alexandria on 5 March, he returned to the desert camps outside Cairo. While attending a school of instruction at Tel el Kebir he sent home a copy of the sports program used on Anzac Day.

Frustrated with the lack of action, Ashworth decided to request a transfer to the artillery. But this was not to be. On 1 July he was made temporary sergeant, and in September and October continued to attend the school of instruction at Zeitoun.

On 2 November 1916, Ashworth was transferred to 4th Camel Regiment and confirmed as troop sergeant.
The Imperial Camel Corps was a camel-mounted infantry brigade that grew to a brigade of four battalions, one each from Great Britain and New Zealand, and two battalions from Australia.

The corps became part of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force and fought in several battles and engagements – in the Senussi Campaign, the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, and in the Arab Revolt.

The first companies were raised in Egypt in January 1916 from Australians returning from Gallipoli.
After forcing the Ottoman Turks to withdraw from Sinai outposts towards Gaza, there was less need for independent camel patrols across the Sinai, and surplus companies were consolidated into a new unit, the 4th (ANZAC) Battalion. Sergeant Ashworth was transferred to this battalion in early February 1917, joining the 17th Camel Company.

German-led Ottoman Army units had been pushed out of the area, but a series of victories were followed by defeat at the First and Second Battles of Gaza in southern Palestine.

After a period of stalemate in Southern Palestine from April to October 1917, Beersheba was captured in an Australian-led victory featuring the famous Light Horse charge.

In early November, the weakened Ottoman defences, which had stretched almost continuously from Gaza to Beersheba, began to fall. To create a gap wide enough for the Desert Mounted Corps to advance to the Ottoman rear and cut the enemy's lines of retreat, Hareira and Sheria had to be captured.

Ashworth’s unit was temporarily attached to Desert Mounted Corps in order to attack this part of the line.
An English soldier described the preparations for the battle:
All bustle and hustle with the Military. Natives rounded up with their donkeys and camels, all bedraggled (their usual appearance). Camels unshaved and carrying stone jars of water in slings. Military Police on horseback at work on the populace. Red Cross cars parked after their activity with the human scraps. Armoured cars cleaning their guns.
Transport dashing about over the heaps and mounds of fodder. Camels with fanaties, aeroplanes flying low over the place. Wrecked pumping station at work ... Cavalry details passing and re-passing.

The attack began on the 6th of November with a surprise attack. While Ottoman defences had been built to resist attack from the south and had proved to be impenetrable from this direction, the surprise attack took place from the east, followed by a main attack from the south-east.
The defenders put up a brave fight, but with trench system defending Hareira and Sheria railway station captured, the Ottomon defences began to fail.

As news of the fall of Gaza arrived, forces advanced north through the ruined city of Sheria in what was described as the “grand finale of the Turks’ great Gaza–to-Beersheba line”.

Sergeant Victor Ashworth would not take part in the celebrations, however, having fallen in battle at Sheria on 7 November. He was buried the same day.

He was 27 years old, survived by his sister Enid, and brothers … Athol – who returned to Australia in 1918 having served with the 1st Light Horse Regiment and been awarded a Military Medal – and Leigh, who had served with the 9th Battalion and returned to Australia in early 1916.

Victor Ashworth’s remains were later reinterred at Beersheba Military Cemetery, where they lie under the inscription chosen by his grieving family: “Dear lad, to live in hearts you left behind is not to die”.

His name 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 Sergeant Victor Wadsworth Ashworth, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Duncan Beard, Editor
Military History Section