Regimental number | 352 |
Date of birth | |
Place of birth | Alberton, South Australia |
School | Alberton Public School and Port Adelaide Marist Brothers (Catholic) College, South Australia |
Religion | Roman Catholic |
Occupation | Labourer |
Address | Queen Street, Alberton, South Australia |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 30 |
Next of kin | Mother, Mrs Agnes O'Brien, Queen Street, Alberton, South Australia |
Previous military service | Nil |
Enlistment date | |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 43rd Battalion, B Company |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/60/1 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board HMAT A19 Afric on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 52nd Battalion |
Other details from Roll of Honour Circular | Served in France.Was wounded on 7th April 1917 but returned to firing line to look for brother who was reported missing. He was twice wounded on 7th June 1917, possibly at Messines, Belgium, and died the same day. |
Fate | Died of wounds |
Place of death or wounding | Messines, Belgium |
Age at death | 31 |
Age at death from cemetery records | 31 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 29), 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 | 155 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Parents: Patrick and Agnes O'BRIEN, Queen Street, Alberton, South Australia |
Family/military connections | Brothers: 2467 Lance Corporal James Daniel O'Brien, 48th Bn, killed in action, 11 April 1917; Lt William O'BRIEN, 27th Bn, killed in action, 9 April 1917; Able Seaman David L. O'BRIEN (b. Alberton, 4 April 1896; enl. RAN, 1913; emb. on declaration of war, 4 August 1914; war service: New Guinea, Samoa, North Sea, HMAS 'Australia', 1915-17; discharged, December 1917). |
Other details |
War service: Western Front Embarked Adelaide, 9 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, France, 20 July 1916; proceeded to England. Transferred to 52nd Bn Reinforcements, 9 September 1916. Proceeded overseas to France, 28 November 1916; taken on strength, 52nd Bn, 14 December 1916. Wounded in action, 7 April 1917 (shell wound, back and left arm); admitted to 9th General Hospital, Rouen, 19 April 1917; rejoined unit, 23 May 1917. Died of wounds received in action, 7 June 1917. Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal |