Nicholas Arthur TUITE

Regimental number1664
Place of birthSydney, New South Wales
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationLabourer
Address7 Hugo Street, Redfern, Sydney, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation23
Height5' 9"
Weight132 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs Bridget Tuite, 7 Hugo Street, Redfern, Sydney, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil (previously rejected on account of feet)
Enlistment date4 September 1916
Place of enlistmentSydney, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit nameLight Trench Mortar Battery, Reinforcement 4
AWM Embarkation Roll number13/130/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A24 Benalla on 9 November 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll14th Trench Mortar Battery
FateKilled in Action 18 October 1917
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 7), 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
21
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Father died 25 November 1919.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 9 November 1916; disembarked Devonport, England, 9 January 1917; marched in to Australian Details, Perham Downs, 10 January 1917.

Transferred to 55th Bn, 6 February 1917.

Admitted to Fovant Military Hospital, 3 March 1917 (not yet diagnosed); discharged (no further details recorded), and marched in to 14th Training Bn, Hurdcott, 13 March 1917.

Prioceeded overseas to France, 25 April 1917; marched in to 5th Australian Division Base Depot, Etaples, 26 April 1917.

Admitted to 26th General Hospital, Etaples, 29 April 1917 (septic throat); transferred to No 6 Convalescent Depot, 5 May 1917 (tonsilitis); discharged to Base Depot, 7 May 1917.

Taken on strength, 55th Bn, in the field, 13 May 1917.

Detached for duty to 14th Light Trench Mortar Battery, 22 June 1917; transferred to 14th Light Trench Mortar Battery, 3 August 1917.

Killed in action, 18 October 1917.

Statement, Red Cross File No 2790301, 1576 Pte J.H. BUGARD, 14th Light Trench Mortar Battery (patient, Boscombe Military Hospital, England), 24 September 1918: 'N.A. Tuill (sic) was killed on the left of Polygon Wood on the Ypres front, and he is buried where he was killed. He stood about 5 ft. 6 inl (sic) in height.'

Second statement, 4196 Pte T. KING, 14th Light Trench Mortar Battery, 26 May 1919: 'I met Tuite just when he joined the Battery in France. He came up from the Infantry. He was rather tall about 5ft. 11" in height and of fair complexion, and was, I think, a married man. I knew him very well. On the 18th October 1917 the Battery was in action for the first time at Anzac ridge near Passchendaele. We had just relieved the 18th Brigade. Tuite and I were working the same gun under Corporal Rose. A shell (a 5.9½ inch) burst right on the dug-out where we all were and buried us all. Tuite was killed outright and he was buried where he fell by Corporal Ross. I saw him buried.'

Third statement, Pte E.G. EMBERSON, 14th Light Trench Mortar Battery (Patient, 3rd Australian Auxiliary Hospital, Dartford, England), 7 October 1918: 'Refer to Cpl. H. Ambler, 14th L.T.M. Bty., who is now in France, for he was near him at the time and buried him at Passchendaele. He was with 2 others in a dug-out asleep when a shell landed through the roof and killed him and another man, while the other was uninjured. The latter's name was King, but he has since been transferred to the Artillery, but [I] do not know which unit. I did not see [the] casualty, nor did I see his grave.'

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, TUITE Nicholas Arthur
Red Cross File No 2790301