The AIF Project

Arthur Leslie PHILBEY

Regimental number1970
Place of birthBute, South Australia
ReligionMethodist
OccupationFarmer
AddressBute, South Australia
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation18
Height5' 9"
Weight147 lbs
Next of kinFather, Joseph Philbey, Bute, South Australia
Previous military serviceNil (exempt area under Compulsory Military Training scheme)
Enlistment date3 April 1916
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name48th Battalion, 3rd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/65/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board HMAT A48 Seang Bee on 13 July 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll48th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 27), 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
146
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked from Adelaide, 12 July 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 9 September 1916. Proceeded overseas to France, 20 November 1916; taken on strength, 48th Bn, 9 December 1916.

Admitted to 39th Casualty Clearing Station, 5 December 1916 (mumps); transferred to 24th General Hospital, Etaples, 8 December 1916; to 18th General Hospital, Camiers, 18 December 1916; to 4th Australian Division Base Depot, Etaples, 4 January 1917; rejoined Bn, 23 January 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 12 October 1917

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, PHILBEY Arthur Leslie

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