Regimental number | 2890 |
Date of birth | |
Place of birth | St Arnaud, Victoria |
School | State School, Victoria |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Miner |
Address | St Arnaud, Victoria |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 21 |
Next of kin | Father, William Undy, Bowen Street, St Arnaud, Victoria |
Previous military service | Served in the Citizen Military Forces. |
Enlistment date | |
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll | |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 14th Battalion, 9th Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/31/3 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A20 Hororata on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 46th Battalion |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Age at death | 23 |
Age at death from cemetery records | 23 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The 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 connections | Brother: 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 |
Sources | NAA: B2455, UNDY Walter Henry Charles |