Regimental number | 1229 |
Date of birth | |
Place of birth | Glencoe, New South Wales |
Religion | Presbyterian |
Occupation | Cordial maker |
Address | Furracabod Street, Glen Innes, New South Wales |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 23 |
Next of kin | Mother, Mrs H McDonald, Wellingrove, Glen Innes, New South Wales |
Previous military service | Nil |
Enlistment date | |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 33rd Battalion, D Company |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/50/1 |
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 |
Age at death from cemetery records | 25 |
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 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | son of Mrs Harriett MCDONALD (formerly PRINGLE), Glen Innes, New South Wales and the late William PRINGLE |
Family/military connections | Brother: 1228 Pte Francis Charles PRINGLE, 32nd Bn, returned to Australia, 21 December 1917. |
Other details |
War service: Western Front Embarked from Sydney, 4 May 1916; disembarked Devonport, England, 9 July 1916. Found guilty of being absent without leave, midnight, 28 October 1916, to midnight, 29 October 1916: awarded 14 days' Field Punishment No. 2 and total forfeiture of 15 days' pay. Admitted to 1st Australian Dermatological Hospital, Bulford, 6 December 1917; discharged, 31 January 1917; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 57 days. Proceeded overseas to France, 13 March 1917; rejoined 33rd Bn in the field, 19 March 1917. Wounded in action, 29 May 1917 (gun shot wound, right arm, left thigh); admitted to 13th General Hospital, Boulogne, 30 May 1917. Transferred to England, 1 June 1917, Royal Victorian Hospital, Netley, 2 June 1917. transferred to 3rd Auxiliary Hospital, 20 June 1917; granted furlough, 5 July 1917, to report to No. 2 Command Depot, Weymouth, 19 July 1917. Proceeded overseas to France, 10 September 1917; rejoined unit, 22 September 1917. Killed in action, 29 September 1917. Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal |