The AIF Project

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.

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Taken on strength, 18th Bn, Gallipoli, 29 September 1915.

Disembarked Alexandria from mudros, 9 January 1916 (general Gallipoli evacuation).

Transferred to Camel Corps, 31 January 1916; taken on strength, Abbassia, 1 February 1916.

Found guilty, 19 March 1916, of being absent without leave from Tattoo, 17 March, to Tattoo, 18 March 1916: deprived of 1 day's pay; total forfeiture: 3 days' pay.

Found guilty, 3 April 1916, of (1) breaking Camp; (2) being absent without leave from 10 am, 31 March, till 6 am, 1 April 1916; (3) breaking Camp; (4) being absent without leave from 9 am, 1 April, till 2 April 1916: awarded 7 days' Field Punishment No 2, and forfeiture of 4 days' pay; total forfeiture: 10 days' pay.

Found guilty, 12 April 1916, of (10 being absent from 6.30 am parade; (2) being in Canteen during prohibited hours; (3) using obscene language to an NCO: awarded 10 days' Field Punishment No 2.

Admitted to Notts & Derby Field Ambulance, Maghara, 2 June 1916 (septic sores); transferred to Australian Rest Station, Mustapha, 2 June 1916; to 17th General Hospital, Alexandria, 14 June 1916 (corneal ulcer); discharged to Reception Hospital, Mustapha, 14 June 1916.

Admitted to 2nd Australian Stationary Hospital, Tel el Kebir, 3 July 1916 (cellulitis); discharged to duty, 11 July 1916.

Attached to 5th Division Details, 11 July 1916.

Embarked Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 2 August 1916; disembarked Marseilles, France, 8 August 1916. Proceeded to England, and marched in to 15th Training Bn, Larkhill, 21 August 1916.

Admitted to Fargo Military Hospital, 17 November 1916 (scabies); discharged from hospital, 7 December 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 16 January 1917; takern on strength, 57th Bn, in the field, 22 January 1917.

Admitted to 14th Australian Field Ambulance, 9 March 1917 (rheumatism), and transferred to 5th Australian Division Rest Station; to 3rd Australian Casualty Clearing Station, 15 March 1917; to Ambulance Train No 1, 16 March 1917, and admitted to No 5 General Hospital, Rouen; transferred to England, 21 March 1917, and admitted to 1st Southern General Hospital, Moneyhull, Birmingham, 22 March 1917 (sub acute rheumatism); transferred to 3rd Australian Auxiliary Hospital, Dartford, 11 April 1917; discharged on furlough, 30 April 1917, to report to No 3 Command Depot, Hurdcott, 15 May 1917.

Found guilty, 18 May 1917, of being absent without leave from 3.30 pm, 15 May, till 6.30 pm, 17 May 1917: awarded 6 days' confined to camp, and forfeited a total of 3 days' pay.

Admitted to Fovant Hospital, 22 May 1917; marched in to No 3 Command Depot from hospital, 14 June 1917.

Classified B 1A3.

Found guilty, 10 July 1917, of being absent without leave from 12 noon, 4 July, till 10 pm, 6 July 1917: awarded 4 days' Field Punishment No 2, and forfeiture of a total of 10 days' pay.

Classified B 1A3, 10 July 1917; B 1A4, 23 July 1917; A3, 3 August 1917.

Marched out to Overeas Training Brigade, 4 August 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 1 September 1917; rejoined 57th Bn, in the field, 11 September 1917.

Reported Missing in Action, 27 September 1917.

Couert of Enquiry, held in the field, 3 November 1917, pronounced fate as 'Killed in Action, 27 September 1917'.