The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (1958) Private Ernest Leslie Norman, 50th 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 Craig Berelle, the story for this day was on (1958) Private Ernest Leslie Norman, 50th Infantry Battalion, AIF, First World War.

1958 Private Ernest Leslie Norman, 50th Infantry Battalion, AIF
KIA 2nd April, 1917

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Ernest Leslie Norman.

Ernest Norman was born in 1892, one of five boys and eight girls born to George and Alice Norman. Ernest attended the local state school and worked as a farmhand on the family farm at Yahl, near Mount Gambier in South Australia.

Ernest Norman enlisted into the Australian Imperial Force on 28 March 1916, and after four months of training set sail from Adelaide, arriving in England in September 1916. In December he transferred to the 50th Battalion and began his service in the Somme region of the Western Front. He arrived just in time for the terribly cold and wet winter of 1916 and 1917; one of his only comforts was that he was serving with his older brother, Lewis, who had joined the 50th Battalion in February 1916. The two brothers endured four months of the hardships and drudgery of a war of attrition. They did not take part in major battles, but rather spent time manning the front line and enduring intermittent German shelling and machine-gun fire, or training behind the front.

In early 1917, the Germans began to make a tactical retreat to the Hindenburg Line, a newly fortified and shortened series of trenches designed to establish a more defensible position. As they withdrew, the Germans fortified and held on to a number of key towns and villages in order to delay allied advances.

On 2 April 1917, Ernest and the 50th Battalion were tasked with taking part on an assault on the heavily defended town of Noreuil. At 5.15 am, Australian troops leapt out of their trenches into no man’s land, encountering heavy German machine-gun and artillery fire, and barbed wire entanglements. The attack had been preceded by an allied artillery bombardment, but this had not been heavy enough to seriously disrupt German defences. Despite this, the troops of the 50th Battalion advanced quickly – at some points, so quickly that they had to be ordered to slow down to avoid running into their own artillery barrage. The attack was successful, but costly. The 50th Battalion incurred 360 of the more than 600 Australian casualties suffered on that day. Ernest’s brother Lewis was taken prisoner and spent the rest of the war in the German prisoner of war camp. Ernest himself disappeared in the thick of the fighting. Initially reported missing in action, confirmation was later received that he had been killed in action. He was 25 years old.

Initially buried where he fell on the battlefield, his remains now lie in the Noreuil Australian Cemetery underneath the epitaph chosen by his grieving parents: “One beloved”.
Private Ernest Leslie Norman 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 Ernest Leslie Norman, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

David Sutton
Historian, Military History Section