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, Western Front

Embarked Melbourne, 10 November 1915; disembarked Suez, 7 December 1915.

Admitted to No 2 Australian Casualty Clearing Station, Ismailia, 11 January 1916; transferred same day to No 1 Stationary Hospital (bronchial pneumonia and varicocele); to Hospital Train No 4, 23 January 1916, and admitted to No 2 Australian General Hospital, Ghezireh, 24 January 1916; to Helouan Convalescent Depot, 27 January 1916 (debility); discharged to duty, 12 February 1916.

Admitted to No 2 Australian General Hospital, 22 February 1916 (varicocele); transferred to British Red Cross Convalescent Depot, Montazah, 24 February 1916; discharged to Agricultural Hall, Ghezireh, 8 March 1916; admitted to No 3 Australian General Hospital, Abbassia, 23 March 1916 (varicocele: mild); transferred to No 3 Auxiliary Hospital, Heliopolis, 3 April 1916; to Ras el Tin Convalescent Depot, 13 April 1916; discharged to duty, 1 May 1916.

Admitted to No 2 Australian Stationary Hospital, 5 May 1916 (phlebitis: mild); transferred to Ras el Tin Convalescent Depot, 8 May 1916; discharged to duty, 31 May 1916.

Embarked Alexandria for England with 8th Training Bn, 5 June 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 21 October 1916; taken on strength, 29th Bn, in the field, 6 November 1916.

Admitted to 36th Casualty Clearing Station, 29 November 1916 (chilled feet); transferred to Ambulance Train No 8, 30 November 1916, and admitted to 14th General Hospital, Wimereux, 1 December 1916. Transferred to England, 13 December 1916 (trench feet); admitted to 2nd Auxiliary Hospital, Southall, 25 January 1917; discharged on furlough, 30 January 1917, to report to No 4 Command Depot, Wareham, 14 February 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 19 April 1917; rejoined unit, in the field, 25 April 1917.

Killed in action, 26 September 1917.

Statement by 6779 Corporal W.J. MARTIN, Beaufort War Hospital, Bristol, 11 May 1918: 'Pte F.J.P. Muldoon was 22 years of age, about 5ft 9inches in height. He was in my section (bombers) No 2 Section 5th Platoon B Coy 29th Bn. He went with me on the 26.9.17 to "Hop it" on the Pollygon (sic) Wood Sector off (sic) Ypres. He was taken to fulfil the duties of stretcher bearer. I saw him about 8 a.m. attending to a wounded man. He had taken his own coat off and was working with plenty of dash. I saw him at 11 a.m. leading a wounded man back to the Aid-Post, but I could not swear I saw him dead later, however the ground he was on was under very heavy shell-fire, and a day later I made every enquiry as to his fate. I was also sent back three days later to look for Discs off bodies in that Sector. Now I found five bodies that it was impossible to identify, only they belonged to the 29th, but I feel sure that Muldoon was killed near Pollyon (sic) Wood.'