The AIF Project

Frederick John PETTET

Regimental number19340
Place of birthSydney, New South Wales
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationBrick burner
Address27 Northumberland Road, Auburn, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation30
Next of kinMother, Mrs M A Pettet, The Esplanade, Thornleigh, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date9 December 1915
Rank on enlistmentGunner
Unit nameField Artillery Brigade 7, Brigade Ammunition Column
AWM Embarkation Roll number13/35/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A8 Argyllshire on 11 May 1916
Rank from Nominal RollDriver
Unit from Nominal Roll7th Field Artillery Brigade
FateKilled in Action 23 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
15
Family/military connectionsBrother: 1818 Pte Stanley Robert PETTET, 2nd Bn, killed in action, 8 August 1915.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked from Sydney, 11 May 1916; disembarked Devonport, England, 10 July 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 29 December 1916.

Killed in action, 23 September 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

Print format    


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