The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (165) Private Myles Standish Cox, 4th Australian Infantry 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 Tristan Rallings, the story for this day was on (165) Private Myles Standish Cox, 4th Australian Infantry Battalion, AIF, First World War.

165 Private Myles Standish Cox, 4th Australian Infantry Battalion, AIF
Illness 16 December 1914
No photograph in collection

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Myles Standish Cox.

Myles Cox was born in Rylstone, a small town in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales, the son of Alice and Edward Standish Cox.

He grew up amid a large family, attended Mildura Public School and went on to work as a station hand. He also served for a year and a half in the Colonial Forces.
On 17 August 1914, Myles and his older brother, Edward, enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force.

The two were posted to E Company of the 4th Battalion. The battalion had just been raised within a fortnight of the declaration of war and was soon to leave Australia for overseas service. Edwards and Myles embarked at Sydney on 20 October 1914, traveling on the troopship Euripides bound for Egypt.

The 4th Battalion would go on to take part in the landing at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915, and then the attack on Lone Pine before being evacuated at the end of the year. Edward and Miles Cox, however, would not live to see Gallipoli.

While many Australian soldiers would die in combat, through accidents, or as prisoners or war, a considerable loss of life would occur due to disease and illness.

Terrible conditions in the trenches of the Western Front would lead to influenza, typhoid, trench foot and trench fever fevers. Viruses would spread quickly aboard crowded troopships, and in unfamiliar environments a simple cut could quickly become infected and develop into pneumonia. The influenza pandemic of 1918 would take more lives than four years of fighting.

Just as Edward and Miles Cox were among the earliest Australians to enlist, illness would cause them to be among the first to fall.

On 13 December 1914, Edward Cox died of pneumonia in Alexandria. He had been in Egypt for less than a fortnight. Myles died of the same disease three days later. He was 23 years old.

Perhaps motivated by her brothers’ deaths, Sister Mary Standish Cox enlisted in the Australian Army Medical Corps in September 1916, serving in England and France before returning to Australia in 1919.

Today, Myle Cox’s remains lie buried in the Cairo War Memorial Cemetery.

His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among more than 60,000 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 Private Myles Standish Cox, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Duncan Beard, Editor
Military History Section