John NOLAN

Regimental number6834
Place of birthDublin, Ireland
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationLabourer
AddressBrisbane, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation31
Height5' 8.5"
Weight150 lbs
Next of kinBrother, Mr M Nolan, 6 Harold Cross, Dublin, Ireland
Previous military serviceServed for 3 years in 1st Leinster Regiment, British Army (discharged on completion of service).
Enlistment date11 October 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name9th Battalion, 22nd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/26/4
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board HMAT A74 Marathon on 27 October 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll9th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 20 September 1917
Place of burialNo known grave
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
57
Other details

War service: Western Front

Treated in Lytton Camp for gonorrhoea prior to embarkation, 25 January-23 October 1916: 272 days.

Embarked Brisbane, 27 October 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 9 January 1917.

Found guilty (on board ship), of being absent without leave, 5 pm, 15 December, to 5 pm, 16 December 1916: awarded 4 days' Field Punishment No. 2; forfeited 6 days' pay.

Found guilty, 3rd Training Bn, England, of being absent without leave, midnight, 26-27 January, to 8 pm, 2 February 1917: awarded 168 hours' detention; forfeited 14 days' pay.

Found guilty, 2 April 1917, Durrington Camp, of being absent without leave from 9.30 pm, 26 March, to 8 am, 2 April 1917: awarded 8 days' detention; forfeited 15 days' pay.

Proceeded overseas to France, 25 April 1917; taken on strength, 9th Bn, 1 May 1917.

Found guilty, 4 June 1917, of failing to appear at the place of parade appointed by his C.O.: awarded 168 hours' detention.

Killed in action, Belgium, 20 September 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
Miscellaneous detailsSee 44A John NOLAN for first enlistment.