The AIF Project

The Menin Gate Memorial (so named because the road led to the town of Menin) was constructed on the site of a gateway in the eastern walls of the old Flemish town of Ypres, Belgium, where hundreds of thousands of allied troops passed on their way to the front, the Ypres salient, the site from April 1915 to the end of the war of some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

The Memorial was conceived as a monument to the 350,000 men of the British Empire who fought in the campaign. Inside the arch, on tablets of Portland stone, are inscribed the names of 56,000 men, including 6,178 Australians, who served in the Ypres campaign and who have no known grave.

The opening of the Menin Gate Memorial on 24 July 1927 so moved the Australian artist Will Longstaff that he painted 'The Menin Gate at Midnight', which portrays a ghostly army of the dead marching past the Menin Gate. The painting now hangs in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, at the entrance of which are two medieval stone lions presented to the Memorial by the City of Ypres in 1936.

Since the 1930s, with the brief interval of the German occupation in the Second World War, the City of Ypres has conducted a ceremony at the Memorial at dusk each evening to commemorate those who died in the Ypres campaign.

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Taken on strength 3rd Bn from 18th Bn, Tel el Kebir, 14 February 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 22 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 28 March 1916.

Missing in action, Belgium, 13 October 1916.

Court of Enquiry, 29 June 1917 at Engle, Belgium, concluded that he was 'killed in action on or about 10th Oct. 1916'. 2376 Sergeant T.A. TURNER, 3rd Bn, gave evidence: 'I last saw him at about 1830 one day at Ypres, the exact date of which I do not remember. I believe it was about 10th October 916. We were in a raiding party on this particular night, and Private Frost was with us. He was crawling out into "No Man's Land" in front of me, and soon after leaving our trenches I lost sight of him. After the raid a roll was called, and Private Frost was missing. We experienced heavy Machine Gun fire coming back across no man's land.' Second witness, Lt C.L. BURRETT, 3rd Bn, stated: 'I commanded a raiding party at Ypres on 10th October 1916. No. 2626 Pte Frost was a member of the party and I knew him. The last time I saw him he passed me about 1830 getting out of our trenches that night into No Man's Land. I called the Roll of the party when we returned about 1900 the same night. Private Frost was missing.'

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal