The AIF Project

Cecil SILVER

Regimental number41
Place of birthCarlton, Victoria
SchoolCarlton State School, Victoria
ReligionCongregational
OccupationGlazier
Address372 Lygon Street, Carlton, Melbourne, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation18
Height5' 4"
Weight121 lbs
Next of kinMiss M Silver, 372 Lygon Street, Carlton, Melbourne, Victoria
Previous military serviceServed for 2 years in the Senior Cadets.; Served in the Carlton Senior Cadets, Victoria.
Enlistment date13 July 1915
Rank on enlistmentSIG
Unit name29th Battalion, Headquarters, Signallers
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Vic, on board HMAT A11 Ascanius on 10 November 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll29th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 26-27 September 1917
Place of death or woundingPolygon Wood, Ypres, Belgium
Age at death18.9
Age at death from cemetery records18
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
116
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Alfred and Annie SILVER. Native of Melbourne
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Disembarked Suez, 7 December 1915. Admitted to 15th Field Ambulance and transferred to No 2 Australian Stationary Hospital, Tel el Kebir, 20 March 1916 (pyrexia unknown origin); discharged to unit, 23 March 1916.

Admitted to 8th Australian Field Ambulance, Ferry Post, 7 April 1916 (asthenia) ; discharged to unit, 17 April 1916. Admitted to 8th Field Ambulance, 24 May 1916; transferred to Australian Casualty Clearing Station, 25 May 1916; to 1st Australian Stationary Hospital, Ismailia, 26 May 1916; to 4th Auxiliary Hospital, Abbassia, 29 May 1916 (enteric); to British Red Cross Hospital, Montazah, 26 June 1916; discharged to 5th Division Depot, 19 July 1916; admitted to No 2 Australian Stationary Hospital, 28 July 1916 (intestinal colic); discharged, 29 July 1916.

Proceeded to England from Alexandria, 2 August 1916; taken on strength, 8th Training Bn, 22 August 1916. Proceeded overseas to France, 2 November 1916; taken on strength, 29th Bn, 21 November 1916.

Detached to Power Buzzer Course, 8 July 1917; rejoined unit, 14 July 1917. Detached to 5th Division Power Buzzer Course, 30 August 1917; rejoined unit, 10 September 1917.

Killed in action, 26-27 September 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal

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