Regimental number | 1337 |
Place of birth | Yea, Victoria |
Religion | Presbyterian |
Occupation | Farmer |
Address | Homewood, via Yea, Victoria |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 28.10 |
Height | 5' 9" |
Weight | 164 lbs |
Next of kin | Mother, Mrs J G Purvis, Homewood, via Yea, Victoria |
Previous military service | Served for 6 years in the 6th Australian Light Horse. |
Enlistment date | |
Place of enlistment | Melbourne, Victoria |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 4th Light Horse Regiment, 10th Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 10/9/2 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A70 Ballarat on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | 2nd Lieutenant |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 1st Anzac cyclists' 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 | 124 |
Family/military connections | Cousin: 6356 Pte Joseph Albert THOMAS, 7th Bn, killed in action, 1 August 1918. |
Other details |
War service: Egypt, Western Front Admitted to No. 4 Auxiliary Hospital, Heliopolis, Egypt, 12 December 1915 (mumps); discharged to duty, 4 January 1916. Appointed Sergeant, 18 March 1916. Transferred to 1st Cyclists' Corps, 20 March 1916. Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 25 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, France, 30 March 1916. Taken on strength, 1st Anzac Cyclists' Bn, 12 May 1916. Promoted Company Sergeant Major, 7 October 1916. Attached to No. 5 Officer Training Bn, Cambridge, England, 12 February 1917. Appointed 2nd Lt, 2 June 1917. Proceeded overseas to France, 8 August 1917; taken on strength, 34th Bn, 19 August 1917. Wounded and missing in action, 12 October 1917. Court of Enquiry, 26 May 1918, determined fate as killed in action, 12 October 1917. Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal |
Sources | NAA: B2455, PURVIS William George |