| Regimental number | 6381 |
| Place of birth | Mount Rowan, Victoria |
| School | Mount Rown State School, Victoria |
| Religion | Methodist |
| Occupation | Labourer |
| Address | Murrayville, Victoria |
| Marital status | Single |
| Age at embarkation | 19 |
| Next of kin | Father, John James Smerdon, Murrayville, Victoria |
| Enlistment date | |
| Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll | |
| Rank on enlistment | Private |
| Unit name | 21st Battalion, 18th Reinforcement |
| AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/38/3 |
| Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A20 Hororata on |
| Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
| Unit from Nominal Roll | 21st Battalion |
| Fate | Killed in Action |
| Place of death or wounding | Reported missing |
| Age at death | 20.11 |
| Age at death from cemetery records | 20 |
| Commemoration details | The 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 | 95 |
| Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Parents: John and Ann SMERDON, Murrayville, Victoria. Native of Mount Rowan, Victoria |
| Family/military connections | Brother: 6380 Pte Alfred Roy SMERDON, 21st Bn, killed in action, 1 September 1918. |
| Other details |
War service: Western Front Re-embarked, 27 October 1915, from Adelaide, South Australia, on board HMAT A24 'Benalla', as 3553 Private, 10th Bn, 11th Reinforcement. Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal |
Postal Address:
Po Box 7916
Canberra BC 2610, Australia
Street Address:
Northcott Drive,
Campbell, ACT 2600
