The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (1407) Lance Corporal Peter Rattigan, 10th 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 Charis May, the story for this day was on (1407) Lance Corporal Peter Rattigan, 10th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

1407 Lance Corporal Peter Rattigan, 10th Battalion, AIF
KIA 22 August 1916
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 29 December 2014

Today we remember and pay tribute to Lance Corporal Peter Rattigan, who died during the First World War.

Peter Rattigan was from Clarence Park in South Australia, the second son of Patrick and Johanna Rattigan. Peter was working as a glass-beveller at the outbreak of war, and the 23-year-old enlisted soon after on 25 November 1914. His younger brother, Francis, joined up on the same day. Both men were appointed to the reinforcements for the 10th Battalion.

Rattigan left Australia in February 1915 on HMAT Clan McGillivray. He arrived in Egypt and joined his battalion just as it was preparing to leave for Gallipoli. It arrived in the early hours of the morning of 25 April as part of the covering force for the landing. Over the next few months Rattigan, like thousands of other Australian soldiers, endured the hardships of life on Gallipoli. This included multiple bouts of sickness and hospitalisation from diseases including dysentery, enteritis, and diphtheria, and a bullet wound in the ear received in early August. In December 1915, after months of stalemate and increasingly poor conditions, the allies evacuated the peninsula and returned to Egypt.

In early April 1916 the 10th Battalion was transferred to France to join in the fighting on the Western Front. After several months of training the battalion was engaged in the attack at Pozières in July. Here the battalion encountered fierce shelling from the enemy, resulting in 350 casualties. Nevertheless, the 10th was soon in action again, with Rattigan promoted to lance corporal. On 19 August the battalion was back in the front lines with orders to continue the attack to Mouquet Farm. The 10th Battalion’s war diary indicates that the fighting was intense:

The moment the first wave left the trenches it was subjected to a heavy fire from [machine-guns] and rifles, also artillery … before launching the attack the battalion sustained over 120 casualties from shell-fire.

The exhausted 10th Battalion was relieved on 22 August. It had suffered 335 casualties, including 51 deaths.

Peter Rattigan was one of those casualties. Though initial reports from witnesses stating that he had been seen in no man’s land with severe wounds to his legs, a court of inquiry held in France nearly a year later deemed that he had been killed in action.

Peter’s brother, Francis, also died on the Western Front – he was killed in Belgium in October 1917. An “in memorium” article published in an Adelaide newspaper just after Francis’ death described the two Rattigan brothers as “very popular and of a manly and upright character”, and that their deaths were “deeply regretted”.

Peter Rattigan is commemorated at the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial in France. It is dedicated to all Australians who fought in France and Belgium during the First World War, and lists the names of those thousands of soldiers who, like Peter, have no known grave.

Peter Rattigan’s name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, along with the names of more than 60,000 other Australians who died fighting in the First World War.

His is just one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Lance Corporal Peter Rattigan and all of those Australians who have given their lives in the service of our nation.

Dr Kate Ariotti
Historian, Military History Section

Sources:
National Archives of Auastralia (NAA) B2455 RATTIGAN PETER: Attestation Papers
NAA B2455 RATTIGAN PETER: “Casualty form – active service”
AWM4 23/27/9: 10th Infantry Battalion War Diary July 1916, entry for 25/7/1916
AWM4 23/27/10: 10th Infantry Battalion War Diary August 1916, entry for 22/8/1916
NAA B2455 RATTIGAN PETER: “Statement of service”
Charles Bean, Official history of Australia in the war of 1914–1918, volume III, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, p. 82, fn 78.
AWM 1DRL/0428: ARC Wounded & Missing File of Lance Corporal Peter Rattigan
NAA B2455 RATTIGAN PETER: “Report of death of a soldier …”
NAA B2455 RATTIGAN FRANCIS
“Late Corporal F. Rattigan”, Daily Herald, 28 November 1917
www.cwgc.org