James Royal LAMBERT

Regimental number757
Date of birth16 April 1894
Place of birthTamworth, New South Wales
SchoolTamworth Public School, New South Wales
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationClerk
Address47½Francis Street, Leichhardt, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation20
Next of kinMother, Mrs E H Lambert, 47½ Francis Street, Leichhardt, New South Wales
Previous military serviceServed in the Citizen Military Forces, Tamworth, New South Wales (still serving at time of enlistment).
Enlistment date25 August 1914
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name2nd Battalion, G Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/19/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A23 Suffolk on 18 October 1914
Rank from Nominal RollSergeant
Unit from Nominal Roll2nd Battalion
FateKilled in Action 6 November 1917
Place of death or woundingPasschendaele, Ypres, Belgium
Age at death23.6
Age at death from cemetery records23
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 7), 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
33
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Edward and Matilda LAMBERT. Native of Tamworth, New South Wales
Family/military connectionsBrother: 137 Corporal John Lester LAMBERT, 5th Pioneer Bn, returned to Australia, 17 June 1918.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Embarked from Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 5 April 1915. Disembarked Alexandria, 28 December 1915 (general Gallipoli evacuation). Appointed Lance Corporal, 23 January 1916; Corporal, 15 February 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 22 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 28 March 1916. Promoted Sergeant, 24 March 1916.

Admitted to 1st Australian Field Ambulance, 20 May 1916; transferred to 26th General Hospital, Etaples, 29 May 1916 (laryngitis); rejoined Bn, 30 July 1916.

Admitted to 3rd Field Ambulance, 21 April 1917 (trench feet); transferred to 6th General Hospital, Rouen, 25 April 1917; to England, 2 May 1917, and admitted to Lewisham Military Hospital, 3 May 1917. Transferred to 1st Auxiliary Hospital, 14 June 1917; discharged to No. 2 Command Depot, Weymouth, 16 June 1917. Proceeded overseas to France, 7 September 1917; rejoined Bn, 25 September 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 6 November 1917.

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