The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (NX180218) Sapper Geoffrey Wilton Partridge, 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers, Second 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 Michael Kelly, the story for this day was on (NX180218) Sapper Geoffrey Wilton Partridge, 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers, Second World War.

NX180218 Sapper Geoffrey Wilton Partridge, 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers
Accidentally killed 21 May 1945
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 11 March 2015

Today we pay tribute to Sapper Geoffrey Wilton Partridge, who was killed in the service of the Royal Australian Engineers in 1945.

Born in Kempsey, New South Wales, on 17 October 1926, Geoffrey Wilton Partridge was the son of Stanley Wilton Partridge and Laurel Nora Partridge. Before his enlistment in the Second Australian Imperial Force in February 1945 Geoffrey Partridge worked as a fruit-mart assistant in Tamworth, New South Wales.

He was posted to the 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers, at the large Australian Army training base at Kapooka. However, in the afternoon of 21 May 1945, tragedy struck.

Crowded within a dug-out during a routine demolition training exercise on the preparation of hand charges were two groups: one of 22 trainees and two instructors; the other of three men and one instructor. Inside the dug-out were stored 110 pounds of explosives for the day’s training exercise. In circumstances that remain unknown, the explosives ignited. In the explosion, 24 men were killed instantly, two died of injuries shortly afterwards, and two more were severely injured.

Partridge was one of those killed in the accident. He was 18 years old.

A mass funeral was held for the men in Wagga Wagga three days later. Thousands of people lined the route of the funeral parade. The 26 flag-draped coffins were carried on four army trucks, and the cortége included over 100 military vehicles carrying members of the Army and Air Force. The dead were buried in the Wagga Wagga War Cemetery.

Partridge’s name – along with the other 25 killed in the accident – is listed here on the Roll of Honour on my left, along with around 40,000 other Australians killed in the Second World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Sapper Geoffrey Wilton Partridge, and all of those Australians who gave their lives in the hope for a better world.

Dr Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section