The AIF Project

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.

War service: taken on strength, 27th Bn, Mudros, 29 December 1915. Admitted to 7th field Ambulance, Mudros, 31 December 1915 (venereal disease); transferred to 27th General Hospital, Mudros, 31 December 1915 (gonorrhoea); to HS 'Asturia', 11 January 1916, and admitted to Convalescent Depot, Mustapha, 13 January 1916; to 17th General Hospital, Alexandria, 14 January 1916; discharged to duty, 12 February 1916; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 44 days; rejoined unit, Ismailia, 12 February 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British expeditionary Force, 15 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 21 March 1916.

Wounded in action, 25 April 1916 (shrapnel wound, right and left shoulders), and admitted to 6th Field Ambulance; transferred to 8th Casualty Clearing Station, 25 April 1916; to 3rd Canadian General Hospital, 28 April 1916; to 1st Convalescent Depot, 6 May 1916; discharged to Base Depot, 16 May 1916; rejoined unit, 1 June 1916.

Found guilty, 15 August 1916, of being absent from 2 pm parade, 14 August 1916: awarded 3 days' Field Punishment No 2. Found guilty, Belgium, 12 September 1916, of being absent without leave from Reveille, 11 September, to 0630, 12 September 1916: awarded 2 days' Field Punishment No 2, and forfeited 2 days' pay.

Admitted to 6th Australian Field Ambulance, 22 September 1916 (measles), and transferred to 2nd Divisional Rest Station; discharged to duty, 5 October 1916; rejoined Bn, 10 October 1916.

Admitted to 6th Australian Field Ambulance, 22 December 1916 (iodine burns), and transferred same day to Anzac corps Rest Station; tp 38th Casualty Clearing Station, 24 December 1916; to Ambulance train, 26 December 1917, and admitted to 10th General Hospital, Rouen, 27 December 1917 (injured foot). Invalided to England, 5 January 1917, and admitted to 2nd southern General Hospital, Bristol, 6 January 1917; transferred to 3rd Auxiliary Hospital, Dartford, 29 January 1917; discharged to No 2 Command Depot, Weymouth, 16 February 1917. Marched out to No 1 Command Depot, Perham Downs, 9 July 1917; to Overseas Training Depot, 21 July 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 7 September 1917. Found guilty, 10 September 1917, of while on Active Service being absent without leave from 9.30 pm, 8 September, until reporting back at 9.30 pm, 9 September 1917: awarded forfeiture of 21 days' pay; forfeited a total of 23 days' pay. Proceeded to join Bn, 15 September 1916; rejoined Bn, 16 September 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 9 October 1917.