The AIF Project

Henry Clive SINNATT

Regimental number1241
Place of birthSt Kilda, Victoria
SchoolBrighton Road State School, St Kilda, Victoria
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationCarpenter
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation20
Height5' 8"
Weight140 lbs
Next of kinFather, Samuel Sinnatt, 226 Barkley Street, St Kilda, Melbourne, Victoria
Previous military serviceServed in the Senior Cadets for 2 years; in the Citizen Military Forces for 2 years.
Enlistment date23 October 1914
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name12th Battalion, 1st Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/29/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A32 Themistocles on 22 December 1914
Regimental number from Nominal Roll1341
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll52nd Battalion
FateKilled in Action 11 June 1917
Place of death or woundingMessines, Belgium
Age at death21
Age at death from cemetery records21
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
156
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Samuel and Eleanor SINNATT, 226 Barkley Street, St. Kilda, Victoria
Family/military connectionsBrother: 2152A Sergeant Farley Richard SINNATT, 43rd Bn, returned to Australia, 13 July 1919.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Admitted to hospital, Gallipoli, 28 June 1915 (diarrhoea). Disembarked Alexandria ex Malta, 12 July 1915. Rejoined unit, 25 July 1915. Disembarked Alexandria, 6 January 1916 (general Gallipoli evacuation). Taken on strength, 52nd Bn, Serapeum, 2 April 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 5 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 12 June 1916. Admitted to 2nd Australian Field Ambulance, 12 August 1916 (whitlow); transferred to 1st Australian Rest Station, 12 August 1916; to 7th Australian Field Ambulance, 12 August 1916; discharged to duty, 15 August 1916.

Wounded in action, 3-4 September 1916 (shell wound, back); admitted to 1st Canadian Field Ambulance, 4 September 1916; transferred to 4th General Hospital, Camiers, 5 September 1916 (gun shot wound, back); to England, 9 September 1916, and admitted to Reading War Hospital, 10 September 1916; to Woodcote Park, Epsom, 28 September 1916; to 2nd Command Depot, 23 October 1916; to 4th Command Depot from furlough, 22 November 1916. Proceeded overseas to France, 11 December 1916. Found guilty, 29 December 1916, of falling out in the line of march: forfeited 1 day's pay. Rejoined 52nd Bn, 5 January 1917.

Found guilty, while on Active Service, absenting himself from 7.45 am parade, 1 February 1917; period absent: 1/4 hour: awarded 21 days' Field Punishment No. 2. To detention, 4 February 1917; rejoined unit from detention, 23 February 1917.

Admitted to 8th Australian Field Ambulance, 10 April 1917 (STR, left foot); rejoined unit, 14 April 1917.

Killed in action, France, 11 June 1917.

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

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