Philip Ambrose WALSH

Regimental number997
Place of birthPort Macquarie, New South Wales
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationLabourer
Address69 Mount Vernon Street, Forest Lodge, Sydney, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation35
Height5' 9"
Weight156 lbs
Next of kinFather, Wilfred Ambrose Walsh, c/o Miss C Walsh, Mater Misericordia Hospital, Sydney, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date20 July 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name30th Battalion, D Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/47/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A72 Beltana on 9 November 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll45th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 7 June 1917
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
140
Family/military connectionsBrothers: 2055 Pte Francis Joseph WALSH, 13th Bn, died of wounds, 21 August 1915; 998A Pte Richard Clarence WALSH, 45th Bn, killed in action, 1 April 1918.
Other details

War service: disembarked Suez, 11 December 1915. Admitted to 8th Field Ambulance, Tel el Kebir, 3 March 1916; transferred to No. 2 Australian Stationary Hospital, 4 March 1916 (rheumatism); discharged to unit, 13 March 1916; returned to duty, 30th Bn, 13 March 1916. Admitted to 15th Field Ambulance, 18 March 1916 (neuritis); returned to duty, 20 March 1916. Transferred to 45th Bn, 23 March 1916.

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

Found guilty, Field General Court Martial, 31 July 1916, of 'when on Active Service disobeying in such a manner as to shew wilfull [sic] defiance of authority, a lawful command given personally by his superior Officer in execution of his duty': awarded 6 months' imprisonment with hard labour. Admitted to Military Prison No. 1, 10 August 1916; released on remission of sentence as from date of entraining for the front. Rejoined 45th Bn, 19 December 1916.

Admitted to 13th Australian Field Ambulance, 17 April 1917 (chronic rheumatism); transferred to Divisional Rest Station, 17 April 1917; to 56th Casualty Clearing Station, 26 April 1917; to 12th General Hospital, Rouen, 28 April 1917; to 2nd Convalescent Camp, 4 May 1917; to 4th Australian Divisional Base Depot, Etaples, 10 May 1917; rejoined Bn, 25 May 1917.

Killed in action, 7 June 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal

Sister, Miss C. Walsh, wrote to Base Records, 16 July 1924: ' ... my father has had a stroke & is unable to transact any business.... I ... would be grateful (seeing that the stroke was caused through the loss of his three sons in the recent war) if you would send all communications to me, since anything in the nature of your communication of the 10th July [seeking her father's address] only revives painful memories to my father in his present state of health.'