The AIF Project

William Jeffry NASH

Regimental number3110
Place of birthYea, Victoria
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationGrazier
AddressYea, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation29.9
Height5' 7"
Weight149 lbs
Next of kinFather, John B Nash, Yea, Victoria
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date27 September 1916
Place of enlistmentMelbourne, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name37th Battalion, 7th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/54/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A70 Ballarat on 19 February 1917
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll37th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 25), 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
128
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Melbourne, 19 February 1917; disembarked Devonport, England, 25 April 1917; marched into 10th Training Bn, 26 April 1917.Ãdmitted to Tidworth Military Hospital, 24 July 1917 (infection; not yet diagnosed); discharged to duty, 9 August 1917.

Poceeded overseas to France, 10 September 1917; taken on strength, 37th Bn, in the field, 23 September 1917.

Reported missing, Belgium, 12 October 1917.

Court of Enquiry, 2 May 1918, concluded: 'Killed in action, Belgium, 12 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, NASH William Jeffry

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