The AIF Project

Percy PAINTER

Regimental number7193
Place of birthOld Basing North, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England
SchoolOld Basing Elementary School, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England
Age on arrival in Australia21
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationStation hand
AddressWalbundrie, via Albury, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation25
Height6' 1"
Weight178 lbs
Next of kinFather, W. Painter, Old Basing, Basingstoke, Hants, England
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date27 April 1916
Place of enlistmentCootamundra, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name2nd Battalion, 24th Reinforcement
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board RMS Osterley on 10 February 1917
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll36th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Place of death or woundingPasschendaele, Ypres, Belgium
Age at death26
Age at death from cemetery records27
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
127
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: William and Emily PAINTER, Old Basing, Basingstoke, Hants., England
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 10 February 1917; disembarked Plymouth, England, 11 April 1917, and reverted to Pte from Voyage Only rank of Sergeant.

Transferred to 63rd Bn, 28 April 1917.

Promoted Sergeant, 8 May 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 23 August 1917; taken on strength, 36th Bn, in the field, 1 September 1917.

Reported missing in action, Belgium, 12 October 1917.

Now, 5 March 1918, posted as 'Killed in action, 12 October 1917'.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, PAINTER Percy

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