The AIF Project

William Rees REYNOLDS

ReligionChurch of England
OccupationFarmer
Address'Lanark', Watson Street, Bondi, Sydney, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation22
Next of kinFather, Captain William Rees Reynolds, 'Lanark', Watson Street, Bondi, Sydney, New South Wales
Enlistment date12 June 1915
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll18 June 1915
Rank on enlistment2nd Lieutenant
Unit name33rd Battalion, 2nd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/50/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A15 Port Sydney on 4 September 1916
Rank from Nominal Roll2nd Lieutenant
Unit from Nominal Roll33rd Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Age at death from cemetery records24
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe 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
Commemorated on St James' Roll of Honour, Sydney, New South Wales: '"He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Matthew 10:39. In memory of those associated with St James' Church who gave their lives in the Great War.' Parents: William REES-REYNOLDS and Mary REYNOLDS, 'The Astor', Macquarie Street, Sydney. Native of Bundaberg, Queensland; listed as REES-REYNOLDS William, and REYNOLDS, William Rees.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
Miscellaneous detailsSee 5021 William Rees REYNOLDS for first period of service.

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