The AIF Project

Alfred R ULPH

Regimental number35
Place of birthHampstead, London, England
SchoolSt Andrew's Church School, Hampstead, England
Age on arrival in Australia24
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationFireman
Address....
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation32
Height5' 6"
Weight128 lbs
Next of kinMrs Sarah Ulph, 58 Richards Buildings, Brunswick Square, London, England
Previous military serviceServed in the King's Royal Rifles, in Boer War and 8 years in India.
Enlistment date25 August 1914
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name9th Battalion, Headquarters
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/26/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board Transport A5 Omrah on 24 September 1914
Rank from Nominal RollCorporal
Unit from Nominal Roll47th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Place of death or woundingPasschendaele, Ypres, Belgium
Age at death38
Age at death from cemetery records38
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 27), 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
144
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: John Edward and Susannah ULPH, 58 Dickens Buildings, Russell Square, London, England. Native of Hampstead, London, England
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Embarked from Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (Gallipoli Campaign), 2 March 1915.

Admitted to 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station, 29 October 1915; transferred to Gibraltar, 7 November 1915, and admitted to General Hospital; to England, 23 November 1915, and admitted to Beaufort War Hospital, Fishponds, Bristol, 28 November 1915.

Arrived at Command Depot, Weymouth, 4 January 1916, for transfer to Egypt.

Transferred to 47th Bn, Serapeum, 23 April 1916; joined 47th Bn, 29 April 1916.

Embarked Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 2 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, France, 9 June 1916.

Promoted Temporary Corporal, 11 September 1916; Corporal, 9 November 1916.

On leave to England, 20 August 1917; returned from leave, 7 September 1917.

Reported as wounded in action, 12 October 1917.

Court of Enquiry, 11 March 1918, confirmed fate as 'killed in action', 12 October 1917.

Buried 1000 yards SW of Passchendaele, 1000 yards NE of Zonnebeke; grave subsequently lost.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, ULPH Alfred R

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