The AIF Project

Frederick PEPPERNELL

Regimental number535
Place of birthWellington, New South Wales
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationLabourer
AddressKerr's Creek, Orange, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation23
Next of kinMother, Mrs Annie Peppernell, Kerr's Creek, Orange, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date17 January 1916
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll29 December 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name36th Battalion, B Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/53/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A72 Beltana on 13 May 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll36th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 7 June 1917
Age at death from cemetery records25
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
Commemorated in Orange Cemetery, New South Wales. Parents: Henry and Annie PEPPERNELL, Kerr's Creek, New South Wales
Family/military connectionsBrothers: 541 Lance Corporal William Henry PEPPERNELL, 33rd Bn, returned to Australia; 534 Lance Corporal Henry PEPPERNELL, 33rd Bn, returned to Australia, 21 June 1919.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 13 May 1916; disembarked Devonport, England, 9 July 1916. Admitted to 1st Australian Dermatological Hospital, Bulford, 17 November 1916; discharged from Parkhouse Military Hospital, 10 January 1917; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 55 days.

Proceeded overseas to France, 4 February 1917; joined Bn, 7 February 1917.

Reported missing in action, Belgium, 7 June 1917; subsequently confirmed killed in action, 7 June 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

Print format    


© The AIF Project 2024, UNSW Canberra. Not to be reproduced without permission.