Thomas Martin HANLY

Regimental number445
Place of birthToowoomba, Queensland
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationGrazier
AddressBell near Dalby, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation37
Next of kinMother, Mrs M Hanly, Bloomfield, Nobby, Queensland
Previous military serviceServed for 3 years in the Queensland Mounted Infantry, Clifton.
Enlistment date23 August 1914
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name9th Battalion, D Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/26/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board Transport A5 Omrah on 24 September 1914
Rank from Nominal RollLance Corporal
Unit from Nominal Roll9th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 20 September 1917
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 17), 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
56
Family/military connectionsBrother: 248 Corporal Paul HANLY, 3rd Imperial Camel Brigade, returned to Australia, 21 June 1917.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Embarked from Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 2 March 1915.

Wounded in action, 25 April 1915 (gun shot wound, shoulder); admitted to No. 2 Australian General Hospital, Cairo, 29 April 1915; rejoined unit at Gallipoli, 17 June 1915.

Admitted to 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station, Gallipoli, 27 September 1915 (debility); transferred by HS 'Gloucester Castle' to Malta, 1 October 1915, and admitted to St Andrew's Hospital. Embarked for Alexandria, 14 December 1915; admitted to No. 1 Australian General Hospital, Cairo, 18 December 1915 (enteric). Transferred to Enteric Convalescent Camp, Port Said, 28 December 1915.

Invalided to Australia on board 'Commonwealth', 21 January 1916; discharged, medically unfit, 14 April 1916.

Re-enlisted, and embarked on HMAT A74 'Marathon' from Brisbane, 27 October 1916, as Pte, 9th Bn, 22nd Reinforcement; disembarked Plymouth, England, 9 January 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 10 April 1917; taken on strength, 9th Bn, 17 April 1917.

Appointed Lance Corporal, 13 May 1917.

Reported wounded and missing in action, Belgium, 20 September 1917; Court of Enquiry confirmed fate as 'killed in action'.

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