The AIF Project

Charles Henry KNIGHT

Regimental number7259
Place of birthHailsham, Sussex, England
Age on arrival in Australia30
ReligionMethodist
OccupationStorekeeper and agent
AddressKorrelocking, Western Australia
Marital statusMarried
Age at embarkation33
Next of kinWife, Mrs Dorothy Pearl Knight, 52 Lindsay Street, Perth, Western Australia
Enlistment date15 September 1916
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name16th Battalion, 24th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/33/6
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT A28 Miltiades on 29 January 1917
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll16th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 27 September 1917
Place of death or woundingPolygon Wood, Belgium
Age at death from cemetery records34
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
80
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Commemorated in Trinity Uniting (formerly Congregational) Church, Perth, Western Australia. Memorial consists of two arched stained glass windows (inscription left: 'I will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage'; inscription right: 'I have fought the good fight. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.' Centred beneath the windows is a small brass plaque: 'World's War. Commenced 4th August 1914. Armistice signed 11th November 1918. Peace signed 28th June 1919. In the cause of truth combined for the freedom of mankind.' Beneath the windows and flanking the plaque left and right are two larger brass plaques bearing the names of members of the parish who served in the war. Those who died are marked with an asterisk and the words 'These died for us'. Parents: Ambrose and Mary Ann KNIGHT; husband of Dorothy Pearl KNIGHT, 8 Cullen Street, Subiaco, Western Australia. Native of Hailsham, Sussex, England
Family/military connectionsBrother: 5094 Rifleman Alfred KNIGHT, Post Office Rifles, London Regiment, British Army, killed in action, 12 December 1917.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

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