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: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 11 May 1915. Wounded in action, 14 May 1915 (gun shot wound, right forearm). Admitted to 15th Australian General Hospital, Alexandria, 26 May 1915; transferred to Helouan Convalescent Camp, Cairo, 24 June 1915; to Base Details, Zeitoun, 27 June 1915. Embarked from Alexandria for Gallipoli, 4 July 1915; rejoined 13th Bn, 10 July 1915. Admitted to 13th Casualty Clearing Station from Walker's Ridge, 23 August 1915 (enteritis); transferred to No. 18 Stationary Hospital, Mudros; to Base details, Mudros, 10 September 1915; to Convalescent Depot, 21 October 1915; returned to Egypt for duty at No. 3 Australian General Hospital, 10 November 1915; to Overseas Base, Ghezireh, 22 January 1916; to 1st Australian Dermatological Hospital, Abbassia, 13 March 1916. Found guilty, 23 March 1916, of breaking out of camp, 1.30 pm, 12 March, remaining absent until 12.50 am, 13 March 1916: awarded 7 days confined to barracks, and forfeited 2 days' pay. Transferred to 45th Bn, 19 April 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 2 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 8 June 1916. Admitted to 4th Australian Field Ambulance, 8 July 1916 (jaundice); transferred to 1st Canadian Casualty Clearing Station, 8 July 1916; to No. 14 General Hospital, Wimereux, 10 July 1916; to England, 10 July 1916, and admitted to 5th Northern General Hospital, Leicester, 11 July 1916; transferred to North Evington Hospital, 11 August 1916; to 1st Australian Auxiliary Hospital, Harefield, 14 August 1916; discharged to No. 1 Command Depot, 11 October 1916; to infantry Training Depot, Perham Downs, 17 February 1917. Proceeded overseas to France, 13 March 1917. Admitted to 51st General Hospital, Etaples, 22 March 1917; discharged to Base Details, 14 April 1917; rejoined unit, 13 May 1917.

Killed in action, 7 June 1917.