The AIF Project

Peter Thomas MOONEY

Regimental number594
Place of birthMittagong, New South Wales
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationFarmer
AddressWinton via Tamworth, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation18
Height5' 7.5"
Weight126 lbs
Next of kinFather, P Mooney, Winton via Tamworth, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date1 March 1916
Place of enlistmentArmidale, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name33rd Battalion, B Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/50/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A74 Marathon on 4 May 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll33rd Battalion
FateKilled in Action 8 June 1917
Age at death from cemetery records19
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
122
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Patrick and Mary MOONEY, North Street, Tamworth, New South Wales. Native of Mittagong, New South Wales
Family/military connectionsBrother: 716 Sergeant Anthony MOONEY DCM, 18th Bn, returned to Australia, 3 March 1919.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 4 May 1916; disembarked Devonport, England, 9 July 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 21 November 1916.

Admitted to 103rd Field Ambulance, 29 November 1916 (acute bronchitis); transferred to No 2 Australian Casualty Clearing Station, 30 November 1916; to Ambulance Train No 18, 16 December 1916, and admitted same day to 8th Stationary Hospital, Wimereux; transferred to No 1 Convalescent Depot, Wimereux, 19 December 1916; discharged to Base Details, 26 December 1916; rejoined Bn, in the field, 26 January 1917.

Killed in action, 8 June 1917.

Handwritten notation on Form B103: 'Buried near Dead Horse Corner[,] Ploegsteert Wood'.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, MOONEY Peter Thomas

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