The AIF Project

Robert KIDD

Regimental number290
Date of birth20 December 1893
Place of birthBarry's Reef, Blackwood, Victoria
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationSawmiller
AddressMathieson Street, Yea, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation20
Height5' 9.5"
Weight146 lbs
Next of kinFather, Arthur Kidd, Yea, Victoria
Previous military service15th Light Horse
Enlistment date20 August 1914
Place of enlistmentBroadmeadows, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name4th Light Horse Regiment, B Squadron
AWM Embarkation Roll number10/9/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board Transport A18 Wiltshire on 19 October 1914
Regimental number from Nominal RollCommissioned
Rank from Nominal RollLieutenant
Unit from Nominal Roll58th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 25 October 1917
Place of death or woundingPasscehndaele Ridge
Age at death23
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 29), 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
165
Family/military connectionsBrother: 1740 Pte Neil KIDD, 23rd Bn, died of wounds, 7 September 1915; cousin: 182 Sapper Harold Evelyn BAXTER, 2nd Field Company Engineers, killed in action, 3 June 1915.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Proceeded to join Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, 20 May 1915; to hospital, Anzac, 16 August 1915 dysentery); proceeded to Mudros (no date); admitted to St Patrick's Hospital, Malta, 25 August 1915; rejoined unit, Gallipoli, 25 October 1915; to be Corporal, 4 November 1915; to be Provisional Sergeant, 27 November 1915; after evacuating Gallipoli his disembarked Alexandria, 27 December 1915.

Promoted Sergeant, Heliopolis, Egypt, 6 March 1916.

Embarked Alexandria to join British Expeditionary Force, 21 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, France, 27 March 1916.

Taken on strength, 1st Australian and New Zealand Mounted Regiment, France, 13 May 1916.

Transferred to 2nd Anzac Mounted Regiment, 7 July 1916.

Transferred to 58th Bn, 9 September 1916; to be 2nd Lieutenant, 9 September 1916.

Admitted to 8th Australian Field Ambulance, France, 15 January 1917 (venereal disease); transferred to New Zealand Stationary Hospital, Amiens, 16 January 1917; to No 7 Stationary Hospital, Boulogne, 19 January 1917; to Base Hospital, 20 January 1917; to No 39 General Hospital, Havre, 21 January 1917; to be Lieutenant, 6 April 1917; discharged to Rest Camp, 9 April 1917: total period of treatment for venereal disease, 85 days; marched into 5th Australian Division Base Depot, Etaples, 13 April 1917; marched out to unit, 16 April 1917; rejoined unit, 21 April 1917.

Admitted to 58th Casualty Clearing Station, 9 July 1917 (appendicitis); transferred to Officers Hospital, 10 July 1917; to 9th Casualty Clearing Station, 10 July 1917; discharged to duty, 15 July 1917; rejoined unit, 16 July 1917.

To England on furlough, 25 July 1917; rejoined unit, 7 August 1917; detached to 2nd Army School of Instruction, 12 August 1917; rejoined unit, 15 September 1917.

To 5th Divisional Detail Camp, 22 September 1917; rejoined unit, 2 October 1917.

Killed in action, Passchendaele Ridge, 25 October 1917 (hit by a shell).

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, KIDD Robert

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