The AIF Project

James SMITH

Regimental number2132
Place of birthNewcastle, England
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationMiner
Addressc/o Mrs Driscoll, Bulli, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation36
Height5' 6"
Weight135 lbs
Next of kinSister, Mrs Smith, Cowper Colliery, Blight, Northumberland, England
Previous military serviceServed for 12 years in the Royal Garrison Artillery, Territorial Force, Tynemouth; discharged when time expired. Also served in Australian Naval & Military Expeditionary Force, Rabaul: enlisted, 5 November 1914; embarked Sydney, 25 January 1915; discharged (medically unfit), 23 December 1915.
Enlistment date10 April 1916
Place of enlistmentSydney, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name33rd Battalion, 3rd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/50/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A68 Anchises on 24 August 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll33rd Battalion
FateKilled in Action 8 June 1917
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
123
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 24 August 1916; admitted to ship's hospital (isolation: venereal disease), 27 September 1916; disembarked Devonport, England, 11 October 1916; admitted to 1st Australian Dermatological Hospital, Bulford, 20 October 1916 (venereal disease); discharged, 8 December 1916; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 72 days.

Marched in to No 1 Command Depot, Perham Downs, 9 December 1916.

Taken on strength, 9th Training Bn, 11 December 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 4 February 1917; taken on strength, 33rd Bn, in the field, 8 February 1917.

Killed in action, 8 June 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
Miscellaneous detailsSee 12 James SMITH for first period of service.
SourcesNAA: B2455, SMITH James

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