The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (N480870) Sapper Thomas Woods, 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 Troy Clayton, the story for this day was on (N480870) Sapper Thomas Woods, 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers, Second World War.

N480870 Sapper Thomas Woods, 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers
Accidentally killed 21 May 1945
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 27 April 2015

Today we pay tribute to Sapper Thomas Woods, who was killed while in the service of the Royal Australian Engineers in 1945.

Born on 28 December 1919 in Parramatta, New South Wales, Thomas Woods – known to family as “Toddy” – was one of four children of Sydney Herbert Woods and Dorothy May Woods.

We know little of Thomas Woods early life, but on 2 May 1940 he married Harriet Lavinia Woods. Together they resided in the Sydney suburb of Brighton-le-sands. Before his mobilisation into the Militia, Woods worked as an assistant sprayer with the Australasian Scale Company.

Following his initial enlistment on 9 December 1944, Woods 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 a smaller squad of three men and one instructor. Inside the dug-out was 110 pounds of explosives stored for 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.

Thomas Woods was one of those killed in the accident. He was 27 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. The cortège included more than 100 military vehicles carrying members of the army and air force. The dead were buried in the Wagga Wagga War Cemetery.

Woods’s name and those of the other 25 who killed in the accident are listed here on the Roll of Honour on my left, along with around 40,000 other Australians who died 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 Thomas Woods, and all of those Australians who gave their lives in the hope for a better world.

Dr Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section