The AIF Project

Walter Henry Charles UNDY

Regimental number2890
Date of birth30 August 1894
Place of birthSt Arnaud, Victoria
SchoolState School, Victoria
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationMiner
AddressSt Arnaud, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation21
Next of kinFather, William Undy, Bowen Street, St Arnaud, Victoria
Previous military serviceServed in the Citizen Military Forces.
Enlistment date7 July 1915
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll20 July 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name14th Battalion, 9th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/31/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A20 Hororata on 27 September 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll46th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Age at death23
Age at death from cemetery records23
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
142
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: William and Mary V. UNDY, Bowen Street, St Arnaud, Victoria
Family/military connectionsBrother: 5638 Sapper Arthur George UNDY, 2nd Tunnelling Company, returned to Australia, 18 January 1919.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Taken on strength, 14th Bn, Ismailia, 8 January 1916. Transferred to 46th Bn, Tel el Kebir, 3 March 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 2 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 8 June 1916.

Wounded in action, 8 August 1916 (gun shot wound, little finger, left hand), and admitted to 4th Casualty Clearing Station; transferred to 2nd Australian General Hospital, Wimereux, 8 August 1916; to No. 1 Convalescent Depot, Boulogne, 23 August 1916; to 4th Australian Division Base Depot, Etaples, 26 August 1916; rejoined 46th Bn, 11 September 1916.

Admonished by Captain F.O. Purnell, 20 October 1916, for being 'unshaven on parade'.

Found guilty, 7 November 1916, of allowing prisoners to escape from close custody: awarded 2 extra guards and forfeiture of 3 days' pay.

Admitted to 36th Casualty Clearing Station, 18 November 1916 (influenza); rejoined unit, 21 November 1916.

Marched in to 12th Training Bn, Codford, England, 15 January 1917; admitted same day to 1st Australian Dermatological Hospital, Bulford; discharged to duty, 5 June 1917; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 142 days.

Proceeded overseas to France, 2 July 1917; rejoined Bn, 21 July 1917. Temporarily detached to 12th Brigade Headquarters as runner, 6 August 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 12 October 1917. Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal

SourcesNAA: B2455, UNDY Walter Henry Charles

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