The AIF Project

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.

War service: Western Front

Embarked Fremantle, 6 June 1916, on board HT 'Suevic'; disembarked Plymouth, England, 21 July 1916.

Found guilty, 28 September 1916, Larkhill, of when on Active Service overstaying leave from midnight, 21 September, to 0630, 26 September 1916: awarded 14 days confined to camp, and forfeiture of 12 days' pay.

Found guilty, Codford, 26 October 1916, of being absent without leave, midnight, 15 October, to 2000, 25 October 1916: awarded forfeiture of 20 days' pay; total forfeiture of 30 days' pay.

Transferred to 31st Bn, and proceeded overseas to France, 4 November 1916; taken on strength, 31st Bn, in the field, 7 December 1916.

Accidentally wounded in the field, 11 January 1917 (bomb wound, right thumb), and admitted to 14th Australian Field Ambulance; transferred same day to 1st New Zealand Stationary Hospital, Amiens; discharged to duty, 10 February 1917; rejoined unit, in the field, 11 February 1917.

Admitted to 4th Field Ambulance, 24 February 1917 (abrasions, feet); transferred to 7th Field Ambulance, 25 February 1917; discharged to duty, 13 March 1917; rejoined unit, 19 March 1917. Court of Enquiry, 12 January 1917, found that there was no blame attached to any person, the accident being caused by the bursting of the barrel, which 'was perobably due to the KYNOCH cartridge having been used'.

Admitted to 8th Field Ambulance, 2 June 1917 (old wound); transferred same day to 29th Casualty Clearing Station; to Ambulance Train, and admitted to 10th General Hospital, Rouen, 6 June 1916; discharged to Base Depot, Havre, 10 June 1916; rejoined unit, in the field, 1 August 1917.

Reported missing in action, 27 September 1917; subsequently confirmed killed in action.

Documentary evidence received that true name was John HAYWARD