The AIF Project

William Michael GALLAGHER

Regimental number4430
Place of birthGlen Innes, New South Wales
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationCarpenter
AddressMacquarie Street, Glen Innes, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation32
Height5' 4.5"
Weight144.5 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs E Spooner, Macquarie Street, Glen Innes, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date12 October 1915
Place of enlistmentArmidale, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name20th Battalion, 11th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/37/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A71 Nestor on 9 April 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll20th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 6 November 1917
Age at death from cemetery records34
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 23), Belgium

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.

Panel number, Roll of Honour,
  Australian War Memorial
91
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Edward GALLAGHER and Esther SPOONER (formerly GALLAGHER), 'Dalmore', Macquarie Street, Glen Innes, New South Wales
Other details

War service: Western Front

Marched in to 5th Training Bn, Rollestone, 31 July 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 5 September 1916; joined 20th Bn, Belgium, 18 September 1916.

Admitted to 5th Australian Field Ambulance, 22 November 1916 (trench feet); transferred to 38th Casualty Clearing Station, 4 December 1916; to Ambulance Train No 17, 5 December 1916, and admitted to 2nd General Hospital, Havre, 6 December 1916; transferred to 4th Convalescent Depot, 14 December 1916; to Base Details, 23 December 1916; rejoined unit, France, 8 March 1917.

Wounded in action, 2 May 1917 (gun shot wound, right foot), and admitted to 5th Australian Field Ambulance; transferred to 3rd Casualty Clearing Station, 5 May 1917, and thence to Ambulance Train, and transferred same day to 11th Staqtionary Hospital, Rouen; to 2nd Convalescent Depot, 7 May 1917; to 11th Convalescent Depot, Buchy, 10 May 1917; to 2nd Australian Division Base Depot, Havre, 21 August 1917; rejoined Bn, France, 1 September 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 6 November 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

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