The AIF Project

Arthur Ernest SIMPSON

Regimental number1093
Place of birthGawler South Australia
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationLabourer
Address...
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation20
Height5' 6.5"
Weight146 lbs
Next of kinSister, Alice Burke, Balle Street, Prospect, South Australia
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date14 September 1914
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name16th Battalion, F Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/33/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board Troopship A40 Ceramic on 22 December 1914
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll16th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 7 August 1917
Date of death7 August 1917
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 17), 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
81
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Proceeded to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 12 April 1915. Wounded in action, 31 May 1915 (bomb wound, knee); admitted to 1st Australian General Hospital, Cairo, 7 June 1915. Embarked to rejoin unit at Gallipoli, 11 August 1915. Reported sick, 23 August 1915; transferred to Egypt on board SS 'Nile', 27 August 1915 (conjunctivitis); admitted to 1st Australian General Hospital, 28 August 1915; discharged to Helouan Convalescent Depot, 4 September 1915. Admitted to 1st Australian General Hospital, 28 October 1915 (influenza); transferred to No. 1 Auxiliary Hospital, Heliopolis, 7 November 1915; to Giza Overseas Base, 8 December 1915. Found guilty of being drunk in town, 27 December 1915: awarded 5 days' confined to barracks. Found guilty, 2 March 1916, of striking a native at Heliopolis: fined 1 day's pay.

Admitted to 4th Australian Field Ambulance, 20 April 1916 (gonnorrhea); transferred to 13th Australian Field Ambulance, 22 April 1916; to No. 1 Stationary Hospital, Ismailia, 9 May 1916; to No. 1 Australian Dermatological Hospital, Abbassia, 12 May 1916. Marched in to 4th Division Base, Tel el Kebir, 14 July 1916. Found guilty, 19 July 1916, of gambling in the lines (playing Crown & Anchor in the mess hut): awarded 14 days' Field Punishment No. 2.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 6 August 1916; disembarked England, and admitted to Bulford Military Hospital, 28 November 1916 (venereal disease); discharged, 23 January 1917; total period of treatment: 57 days.

Declared an illegal absentee by Court of Inquiry, 5 January 1917. Reported back from absence, 25 January 1917. Found guilty by District Court Martial, Perham Downs, 8 February 1917: (1) absent without leave in that he at Perham Downs absented himself without leave from No. 1 Command Depot on 21/11/1916 until he was apprehended at Crawford Place London at 1.40 pm 23/11/16; (2) an act to the prejudice of good order and military discipline in that he at Crawford Place London 23/11/16 made use of a document purporting to be a genuine pass well knowing that it was not genuine: awarded 120 days' detention. Sentence confirmed Brig-Gen Sir Newton Moore, AIF Depots in the UK, 14 February 1917, but 70 days remitted. Total forfeiture of pay: 129 days'.

Proceeded overseas to France, 3 May 1917. Found guilty, 25 June 1917, of (1) creating a disturbance about 8 pm 21/6/17; (2) absent without leave from 1800 21/6/17 until arrested by M.F. Police at 8.15 pm, 21/6/17: forfeited 7 days' pay.

Killed in action, 7 August 1917.

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

Print format    


© The AIF Project 2024, UNSW Canberra. Not to be reproduced without permission.