The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (NX35467) Acting Lance Corporal Luke Bunter, 3rd Reserve Motor Transport Company, Australian Army Service Corps, Second AIF, 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 Richard Cruise, the story for this day was on (NX35467) Acting Lance Corporal Luke Bunter, 3rd Reserve Motor Transport Company, Australian Army Service Corps, Second AIF, Second World War.

NX35467 Acting Lance Corporal Luke Bunter, 3rd Reserve Motor Transport Company, Australian Army Service Corps, Second AIF
DOD 2 December 1943
No photograph in collection – supplied by family

Story delivered 21 November 2015

Today we remember and pay tribute to Acting Lance Corporal Luke Bunter, who was killed on active service during the Second World War.

Born in Mittagong, New South Wales, on 26 January 1904, Luke Bunter was the son of Luke and Sarah Bunter. He attended the Bowral District School and Sydney Boys’ High School. Following his schooling he worked variously as a teacher and as a labourer on the family farm, and married Elsie Gertrude Cottam. Together they had seven children.

After the outbreak of the Second World War Luke Bunter enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force in June 1940 and was posted to the 3rd Reserve Motor Transport Company, then based in Tamworth, New South Wales. In April 1941 he embarked for overseas service, arriving in Singapore, where his unit joined the 8th Australian Division.

Following Japan’s entry in the war in December 1941, the Allied forces on the Malayan peninsula were pushed back against a rapid advance.

On 6 February 1942, just two days before the Japanese landed on Singapore Island, Bunter’s unit was evacuated from Singapore. Arriving in Java on the 11th, it joined the other Australian units assembled there to form “Black Force”. However, following the capitulation of Allied forces, Bunter was one of 22,000 Australians to become a prisoner of the Japanese.

At the end of 1942 Bunter was transported to Burma as part of the large workforce being assembled by the Japanese to construct the Burma–Thailand Railway.

Many of the prisoners were malnourished, and disease was rife. It was there in Burma, at the Anganon camp, that Luke Bunter died of dysentery on 2 December 1943. He was 39 years old.

Bunter’s body is buried in the British and Commonwealth War Cemetery at Thabyuzayat in Myanmar.

His name is listed here on the Roll of Honour on my left, along with the names of around 40,000 other Australians who died in the Second World War. His photograph is displayed today beside the Pool of Reflection.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Acting Lance Corporal Luke Bunter, and all of those Australians who gave their lives in the hope of a better world.

Dr Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section