The AIF Project

Leo Frank SHELTON

Regimental number1555
Place of birthKangaroo Flat, Victoria
Other NamesLeonard Frank
SchoolKangaroo Flat State School, Victoria
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationButcher
AddressKangaroo Flat, Bendigo, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation20
Height5' 10"
Weight172 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs A J Shelton, Kangaroo Flat, Bendigo, Victoria
Previous military serviceServed in the Senior Cadets for 1 year; in the Citizen Military Forces, Bendigo, Victoria, for 2 years.
Enlistment date19 March 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name24th Battalion, 1st Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/41/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A40 Ceramic on 25 June 1915
Rank from Nominal RollLance Sergeant
Unit from Nominal Roll57th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 26 September 1917
Age at death22
Age at death from cemetery records22
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 29), 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
164
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Commemorated on James Roe Lodge (MU) Roll of Honor ['Our Soldier Brethren'], Soldiers Memorial Institute Bendigo, Victoria. Parents: Henry and Annie SHELTON, Kangaroo Flat, Victoria. Native of Kangaroo Gully, Victoria
Family/military connectionsUnspecified relation: 1996 Lance Corporal Thomas MADDAMS MM, 57th Bn, returned to Australia, 25 January 1919.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 30 August 1915 (no further Gallipoli details recorded). Found guilty, 3 January 1916, of being absent without leave from afternoon parade, Mudros: awarded 5 days' confined to camp. Disembarked Alexandria from Mudros, 10 January 1916 (general Gallipoli evacuation). Taken on strength, 57th Bn, Sphinx Post, 12 May 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 17 June 1916; disembarked Marseille, France,23 June 1916.

Wounded in action, 7 October 1916 (bomb wound, right arm and face), and admitted to 14th Field Ambulance; transferred to 5th Division Rest Station, 8 October 1916; to 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station, 11 October 1916; rejoined unit, 2 November 1916.

Admitted to 38th Casualty Clearing Station, 29 November 1916 (trench feet); transferred to 2nd General Hospital, Havre, 30 November 1916; to 5th Australian Division Base Depot, 18 December 1916; rejoined unit, 29 December 1916.

Appointed Lance Corporal, 25 May 1917.

To England on leave, 16 May 1917; returned from leave, 31 May 1917.

Killed in action, 26 September 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, SHELTON Leo Frank

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