John Joseph HARRINGTON

Regimental number2694
Place of birthAthlone, Co. Westmeath, Ireland
Place of birthAthlone, Co Westmeath, Ireland
SchoolMarist Bros (Catholic), Athlone, Ireland
Age on arrival in Australia21
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationWeaver
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation22
Next of kinFather, John Harrington, Athlone, Co Westmeath, Ireland
Enlistment date17 July 1915
Place of enlistmentGeelong, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name21st Battalion, 6th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/38/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board RMS Moldavia on 5 October 1915
Rank from Nominal RollCorporal
Unit from Nominal Roll21st Battalion
Other details from Roll of Honour Circular'My son fought at Pozieres, Mouquet Farm and Bullecourt, Bapaume and first Battle of the Somme. He was in Egypt for some time before coming to France.' Details from Father.
FateKilled in Action 21 September 1917
Miscellaneous details (Nominal Roll)*Given name John Joseph
Place of death or woundingMenin Road, Ypres, Belgium
Age at death from cemetery records24
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
93
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: John and Kate HARRINGTON, 51 West Orchard, Coventry, England. Native of Athlone, Co. Westmeath, Ireland
Family/military connections'With Corp. McIntosh M.M. as stretcher bearers both were made Corps. together. Both were recommended for M.M., but somehow there was some mistake about my son's name not being sent in and he did not receive medal.'
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

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