Archibald Reinmuth NEVIN

Place of birthHadspen, Tasmania
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationFarmer
AddressForest Lodge, Hadspen, Tasmania
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation23
Next of kinFather, R H Nevin, Forest Lodge, Hadspen, Tasmania
Enlistment date15 September 1915
Rank on enlistmentLieutenant
Unit name15th Battalion, 11th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/32/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A38 Ulysses on 27 October 1915
Rank from Nominal RollLieutenant
Unit from Nominal Roll15th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 23 September 1916
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 17), 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
77
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Allotted to 15th Bn, Tel el Kebir, 10 March 1916.

Admitted to 44th Casualty Clearing Station, Serapeum, 30 April 1916 (diarrhoea); transferred to No. 1 Australian Stationary Hospital, 2 May 1916; discharged to duty, 9 May 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 1 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 8 June 1916.

Seconded for duty with 4th Australian Light Trench Mortar Battery, 30 June 1916.

Promoted Lieutenant, 9 July 1916. Rejoined Bn from secondment, 9 September 1916.

Wounded in action and missing in action, 23 September 1916; confirmed as killed in action.

Assistant Adjutant, 15th Bn, stated: 'Lieut. A.R. NEVIN was killed whilst patrolling "No Man's Land" and [his] body was not recovered during this Unit's tour of duty in [the] front line near St. ELOI, Belgium, Sept./Oct. 1918.' 311 Pte J. Lydford stated, 28 November 1916: 'Lt Nevin led a patrol of two men to the German trench at Ypres on date mentioned, and was killed by a bomb, on the parapet of the German trench. He [Lydford] was told this by one of the patrol, both of whom returned safely.' 1820 Pte Reynolds stated, 19 November 1916: 'At St. Eloi about 23rd Sept. was out in patrol, with Blackburn (Sgt) of D Company, and was killed by a bomb, they made it up to rush a listening post, and was killed.' 3713 Pte R.T. Coffey stated, 22 September 1916: 'I on the night of 22nd Sept. 1916 at St. Eloi, Lt and two NCOs Cpls Smith and Hocker, of A Coy, went out as a patrol. Next morning at Roll Call, the NCOs told us that Nevin got right through the German barbed wire, and was on the edge of that part of the trench called the Crater, when he was bombed by a German. He fell back with a groan. The NCOs were bombed as well, & had to retire. Next morning we looked through periscopes & glasses but could not see Lt Nevin. He had probably fallen in the crater. He might be wounded or killed but it was not ascertained which.'

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