Victor John NATHAN

Regimental number3881
Place of birthHobart, Tasmania
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationFarmer
Address23 Waterloo Road, Collingwood, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation26
Next of kinMother, Mrs J Gallichan, Mansfield Hotel, Mansfield, Victoria
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date13 July 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name6th Battalion, 12th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/23/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A40 Ceramic on 23 November 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll6th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 4 October 1917
Age at death from cemetery records27
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
47
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Commemorated in Pimpinio Cemetery, Victoria. Son of Jane GALLICHAN (formerly NATHAN), 23 Waterloo Road, Collingwood, Victoria. and the late Samson NATHAN. Native of Carlton, Victoria
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Taken on strength, 6th Bn, Serapeum, 22 February 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 26 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 2 April 1916.

Wounded in action, 18 August 1916 (gun shot wound, foot); admitted to Anzac Rest Station, 19 August 1916; transferred to 5th Field Ambulance, 20 August 1916; discharged to duty, 22 August 1916; rejoined Bn, 22 August 1916.

Admitted to 1 Field Ambulance, 23 May 1917 (scabies); rejoined Bn, 7 June 1917.

On leave to England, 15 August 1917; rejoined Bn from leave, 2 September 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 4 October 1917.

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