Regimental number | 1590 |
Place of birth | Manchester, England |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Bushman |
Address | Myall Creek, Bingara, New South Wales |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 25 |
Height | 5' 3.5" |
Weight | 114 lbs |
Next of kin | Father, R Pomfret, 14 Mary Street, Regent Road, Salford, Manchester, England |
Previous military service | Served in the Manchester 3rd Bn, Volunteers [? not clear from Attestion Form] |
Enlistment date | |
Place of enlistment | Armidale, New South Wales |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 33rd Battalion, 1st Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/50/2 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A74 Marathon on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 33rd Battalion |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 23), 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 | 122 |
Other details |
War service: Western Front Embarked Sydney, 4 May 1916; disembarked Plymouth, Eng;land, 9 July 1916. On Command, Aldershot School, 30 September 1916. Admitted to hospital (date not recorded); marched in to 9th Taining Bn from hospital, 14 December 1916 (no further details recorded). Found guilty, 27 December 1916, of failing to appear at a place of parade appointed by his CO: awarded 14 days' detention. Proceeded overseas to France, 16 January 1917; taken on strength, 33rd Bn, in the field, 20 January 1917. Admitted to 11th Field Ambulance, 16 March 1917 (enteritis); transferred to No 2 Australian Casualty Clearing Station, 17 March 1917; discharged to duty, 31 March 1917, and rejoined Bn. Killed in action, 8 June 1917. Handwritten notation on Form B103: 'Buried in the vicinity of Messines'. Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal |
Sources | NAA: B2455, POMFRET William |