Arthur WHITE

Regimental number3962
Place of birthBattersea, London, England
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationLabourer
AddressState Savings Bank of Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation21
Height5' 4.25"
Weight154 lbs
Next of kinSister, Mrs B Murray, 104 Brecknock Street, Holloway, England
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date7 August 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name7th Battalion, 12th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/24/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A40 Ceramic on 23 November 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll57th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 26 September 1917
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 29), 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
164
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Taken on strength, 59th Bn, Tel el Kebir, 26 February 1916. transferred to 57th Bn, 15 March 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 17 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 24 June 1916.

Wounded in action, 9 August 1916 (bullet wound, neck), and admitted to 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station; transferred by 14th Ambulance Train and admitted to 13th General Hospital, Boulogne, 13 August 1916; transferred to England, 15 august 1916, and admitted to Wharncliffe War Hospital, Sheffield, 16 August 1916 (gun shot wound, neck: severe); discharged, 16 September 1916; marched in to No. 1 Command Depot, Perham Downs, 18 September 1916. Proceeded overseas to France, 8 February 1917; rejoined Bn, 16 February 1918.

Killed in action, 26 September 1917.

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