The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (WX25792) Sergeant Ronald Irwin Linthorne, 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers, 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 (WX25792) Sergeant Ronald Irwin Linthorne, 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers, First World War.

WX25792 Sergeant Ronald Irwin Linthorne, 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers
Accidentally killed 21 May 1945
Photograph: P07725.001

Story delivered 20 March 2015

Today we pay tribute to Sergeant Ronald Irwin Linthorne, who was killed in the service of the Royal Australian Engineers in 1945.

Born in Claremont, Western Australia, on 9 May 1920, Ronald Irwin Linthorne was the only son of Irwin Montague and Elizabeth Linthorne.

We know little of Ronald Linthorne’s early life. He was a carpenter by trade, and prior to his voluntary enlistment in the Second Australian Imperial Force in July 1942 he had been mobilised in the Militia.

Once in the army, Linthorne served with a number of anti-aircraft batteries, including at RAAF Base Pearce, north of Perth. During his service Linthorne met Pauline Patterson Graham, of Melbourne, who was serving in the Women’s Australian Auxiliary Air Force. Engaged in 1943, they married in the Melbourne suburb of Ashburton on 28 March 1945.

Linthorne was posted in May 1945 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, and one of three men and one instructor. Inside the dug-out were 110 pounds of explosives stored for the day’s training exercise. In circumstances that remain unknown to this day, the explosives ignited. In the explosion, 24 men were killed instantly, two died of injuries shortly afterwards, and two more were severely injured.

Linthorne was one of those killed in the accident. He was 25 years old.

A mass funeral was held for the men in Wagga Wagga. 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.

In Western Australia, Linthorne’s family posted a number notices in the local newspaper. His mother and father wrote:

Happy and smiling always content,
Loved and respected wherever he went.
His life was great, his heart was kind,
A better son no one could find.
What beautiful memories left behind.
He lies now in Wagga, in a soldier’s grave.
Honoured with Australia’s brave,
Our Ron.

Another notice read: “Too far away your grave to see, but not too far to think of thee.”

In his memory the family would continue to post these notices in the newspaper on the anniversary of his death for years after the war.

Linthorne’s name – along with those of the 25 others killed in the accident – is listed here on the Roll of Honour on my left, along with around 40,000 Australians who lost their lives 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 Sergeant Ronald Irwin Linthorne, and all of those Australians who gave their lives in the hope for a better world.

Dr Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section