Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Gepp entered the Royal Military College, Duntroon on 9 March 1913 and was graduated early, along with the rest of his class, on 28 June 1915. He joined B Company, 32nd Battalion as a Lieutenant and embarked from Adelaide in November 1915. In early 1916 he was transferred to the 28th Battalion at Tel-el-Kebir in Egypt as a platoon commander in B Company and moved with his battalion to France in March 1916. According to his commanding officer, Gepp "did good work in the trenches at Armentières and was posted as Signalling Officer when the Battalion moved to the Somme in July. He did excellent work in that position until killed in action on 5 August 1916.”

The 28th Battalion was occupying the OG line near the Windmill on Pozières heights on 5 August 1916 when Gepp was hit by the concussion of an enemy shell and killed. He was buried on the spot but his grave was lost in later fighting. - From the ACT Memorial (www.memorial.act.gov.au)

"OUR HEROES. THE LATE LIEUT. A. E. C. GEPP.

Mr. Henry Gepp, of Pirie street, has received word from the military authorities that his son Arhur was killed in action in France sometime between August 4 and 7. Lieutenant A. E. C. Gepp was born in Adelaide on November 25, 1896, and was educated at Pulteney street school and Prince Alfred College. He entered the college when 11 years of age, and had a most successful career there. During his last year at school, in 1913, he competed for an entrance scholarship to Duntroon, in which he came top of all the South Australian competitors, and second in the whole Commonwealth. He obtained his commission as first lieutenant in June, 1915, and came over here to join the Mitcham camp. He left on November 18, 1915, for Egypt, where he remained until March of this year. His work there was so good that he was given his third star and was transferred for service on the western front, where he met his death before he had reached his twentieth birthday. Lieutenant Gepp's quiet and gentlemanly demeanor gained for him hosts of friends, both at school and at the military college, and there are very many who will deeply regret the untimely end of what gave promise of being an exceptionally brilliant career. Lieutenant Gepp was a cousin of Henry Brose, one of the most brilliant Rhodes scholars South Australia has produced, and who is now interned in Germany, where he was studying when the war broke out." - From the Adelaide Daily Herald 30 Aug 1916 (nla.gov.au)