The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (2305) Private Stanley Roy Day, 37th 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 Richard Cruise, the story for this day was on (2305) Private Stanley Roy Day, 37th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

2305 Private Stanley Roy Day, 37th Battalion, AIF
KIA 4 October 1917
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 27 December 2015

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Stanley Roy Day.

Stanley Day was born in 1896 in Tongala, Victoria, to William and Isabella Day. He attended the Tongala South School, and went on to become a bank clerk. As a young man he moved to Deniliquin in New South Wales and took a post as a clerk in the local branch of the Union Bank.

A number of Day’s brothers applied to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force. His brother Jack was rejected on medical grounds, but his brother William was accepted and served on Gallipoli. Other brothers served in France. Private William Day of the 14th Battalion was killed on the Gallipoli peninsula on 19 May 1915, and was buried in Shrapnel Valley.

A little over a year later Stanley Day left his job in Deniliquin and travelled to Melbourne via Kyabram, where he sought his parents’ permission to enlist. This granted, he joined up at the Melbourne Town Hall in August 1916.

Private Day left Australia in October 1916 for overseas service. He underwent further training in England before being sent to join the 37th Battalion fighting on the Western Front on Anzac Day 1917.

Day was with his battalion as it participated in its first major battle at Messines in June 1917. Early in October the 37th was bivouacking near the Belgian town of Ypres, digging out or putting up small shelters just beyond the Menin Gate. There they completed preparations for an operation at nearby Broodseinde.

Before the attack even began at dawn on 4 October the Australian troops on the front lines were shelled heavily and suffered significant casualties. Once the operation went ahead the attacking troops were metwith a simultaneous assault from the Germans. The Australians prevailed, capturing several important German positions, but at the heavy cost of 6,500 casualties.

One of those killed was Private Stanley Roy Day. In the confusion of the battle no one recorded the exact manner of his death, nor was his body identified afterward. Today he is one of the tens of thousands recorded on the Menin Gate memorial constructed to remember the missing. He was 21 years old.

His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among more than 60,000 Australians who died during the First World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Private Stanley Roy Day, his brother Private William Alfred Day, and all those Australians who have given their lives in the service of our nation.

Dr Meleah Hampton
Historian, Military History Section