The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of Captain Guy Owen Manning, Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN & MEF) 1 Battalion Tropical Unit, 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 Craig Barrelle, the story for this day was on Captain Guy Owen Manning, Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN & MEF) 1 Battalion Tropical Unit, First World War.


Not for public release due to technical errors.

Captain Guy Owen Manning, Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN & MEF) 1 Battalion Tropical Unit
Accidental (Motor cycle accident) 18 June 1915

Today we remember and pay tribute to Captain Guy Owen Manning.

Guy Manning was born in the Sydney suburb of Hunters Hill on 4 November 1881, the son of Emily and Charles Manning.

From a well-known family in the legal profession, and the son of a judge, Manning was educated at the prestigious Kings School.

He arrived in Port Moresby in February 1901, to work as assistant private secretary to Administrator Le Hunte, of British New Guinea, and the following year became assistant resident magistrate. In 1904, he was private secretary to acting Administrator Barton.

In 1907, he resigned from the administration to work as a land clearance contractor at Paili near Marshall Lagoon for the Laka River Rubber Estates. In 1910, he was manager of the estate until early 1912 when he left Papua and married Lynda Cowper in Sydney.

On the outbreak of the First World War, Manning applied for a commission, and in August 1914 he was appointed second-lieutenant in E Company of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force.

The AN&MEF was formed in response to a request from the British Government to seize German wireless stations in German New Guinea and establish a military administration, occupying the territory under the British flag.

With a force consisting of an infantry battalion of 1,000 men, and 500 naval reservists and ex-sailors, the AN&MEF left Sydney on 19 August aboard HMAS Berrima.

The AN&MEF moved to Port Moresby where it met a Queensland contingent, and then sailed for German New Guinea.

On 11 September 1914, 1,500 men and almost the entire Australian fleet arrived off Rabaul in German New Guinea. Two parties of 25 naval reservists went ashore at the settlements of Herbertshöhe and Kabakaul. The party that landed at Kabakaul was tasked with capturing the wireless station at Bitapaka about seven kilometres inland. This group encountered significant resistance as it progressed towards the wireless station. Six Australians had been killed and four wounded in the fighting for the Bitapaka wireless station. But by 17 September terms had been reached and all military resistance ended. With German New Guinea under Australian control, the German threat in the region had ceased, and Australian military occupation began.

Manning was promoted to captain on 1 January 1915, having been appointed the Officer in Charge of Native Affairs of German New Guinea in early December 1914.

Almost nobody in the force had experience in colonial administration, and his experience in Papua soon proved valuable. He was made District Officer for New Ireland in February 1915, and towards the end of the month reported that a public execution of a man for murdering a “Malay” at Malum had a good effect on the “unruly natives”.

Travelling by foot, horse, trap and boat, Captain Manning crossed the island twice, visiting all plantations and principal villages, and studied German reports about the declining population in New Ireland, attributed mainly to the recruitment and removal of men and young women from villages.
He recommended that the German ban on recruiting women be continued and by October all recruiting for work outside the district was banned without the special written approval of the administrator.

On 18 June 1915, Manning had been out along the East Coast road with Private Good, a mechanic. When Manning failed to arrive, Private Good turned back to find the scene of an accident, and Manning being attended to by local inhabitants from the nearby mission.

As Manning’s family was living with him, Lynda Manning hitched up the station buggy and collected an AN&MEF medical orderly and drove to the accident.
But Manning’s injuries were too serious, and he died shortly after they arrived.

He was buried at Pakail the following day.

Guy Manning’s brother, Major Charles Edye Manning, was Assistant Judge Advocate-General in New Guinea after the military occupation. He left to fight on the Western Front, where he was killed on 7 August 1916.

Guy Manning name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among almost 62,000 Australians who died while serving in 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 Captain Guy Owen Manning, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Duncan Beard
Editor, Military History Section