The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (QX21002) Gunner Percival William Frederick Carter, 2/10th Field Regiment, 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 Jana Johnson, the story for this day was on (QX21002) Gunner Percival William Frederick Carter, 2/10th Field Regiment, Second World War.

QX21002 Gunner Percival William Frederick Carter, 2/10th Field Regiment
Died of Illness 2 March 1945
Story delivered 12 September 2018

Today we remember and pay tribute to Gunner Percival William Frederick Carter.

Percival Carter, known as “Perc” or “Percy” to his family and friends, was born on 3 August 1918 to Edgar and Ellen Carter in Hertfordshire, England. After moving to Australia with his family, Carter worked as a labourer and lived in Brisbane.

In June 1940, Carter joined the permanent Australian military forces and served in the 8th Heavy Battery of the Royal Australian Artillery. This unit formed part of Australia’s artillery defence, should an invasion occur. Service of this nature was not completely free from danger. On 1 September 1940, while stationed at Fort Lytton in Brisbane, Carter was briefly hospitalised after a bike that he and one of his fellow artillerymen were riding collapsed as they were travelling down a hill.

On 17 April 1941 Carter left the Royal Australian Artillery and joined the Second Australian Imperial Force, a move that would allow him to serve overseas. He trained at the Redbank Camp near Ipswich in Queensland, and on 17 September 1941 sailed from Sydney, bound for Singapore. Carter continued to work as an artilleryman, and on 7 September transferred to the 2/10th Field Regiment, which was attached to the 8th Division’s 22nd Brigade.

He served with this unit on the Malay Peninsula to the north of Singapore, and was based at Mersing on the peninsula’s east coast when Japan entered the Second World War. Carter and the 2/10th Field Regiment used their 25-pounder guns to provide support for Australian troops as they withdrew from the Japanese advance down the Malay Peninsula. On the night of 26/27 January they supported the Australian ambush of Japanese forces at Nithsdale Estate. The ambush, although successful, was not decisive, and in late January the unit, along with other Australian troops, withdrew to Singapore Island.

Carter was defending Singapore when the island came under intense Japanese artillery fire, and later a full scale attack. On 15 February he was one of nearly 15,000 Australians who became prisoners of war after the fall of Singapore.

Carter was imprisoned at Changi prison camp until July 1942, when he was transferred to the B Force labour group. With this group he sailed to Sandakan, on the north of Borneo, where 2,500 Australian and British prisoners of war were initially put to work building an airstrip.

In January 1945, as Allied forces advanced through the Netherlands East Indies and the Philippines, the Japanese decided to move the surviving Australian and British prisoners at Sandakan to Ranau, some 260 kilometres into Borneo’s rugged interior.

This move became known as the Sandakan Death March; it is the greatest atrocity committed against Australians in war. Of the 2,500 Australian and British prisoners of war originally transferred to Borneo, only six would survive.

Carter is officially recorded as having died of illness on 2 March 1945 while on the march from Sandakan to Ranau. An unconfirmed report states that he was executed by Japanese soldiers at a staging camp at Muanad. He was 26 years old.

In 1951, Carter’s grieving parents left a simple message in their local paper: “Always remembered by Mum and Dad”. In the same paper, his friends wrote: “Our dearest wish today, Is to have you here in the same old way”.

A year later, another tribute read: “Down the lane of memories, The lights are never dim, Until the stars forget to shine, We will remember him”.
Today is commemorated at the Labuan Memorial in Malaysia.

His name also appears on the Roll of Honour on my left, among some 40,000 Australians who died while serving 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 Gunner Percival William Frederick Carter, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

David Sutton
Historian, Military History Section