Regimental number | 6956 |
Place of birth | Parramatta, New South Wales |
School | Seven Hills and Parramatta South Superior Public Schools, New South Wales |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Orchardist |
Address | Seven Hills, New South Wales |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 25 |
Height | 5' 4.5" |
Weight | 134 lbs |
Next of kin | Father, J Brunton, Seven Hills, New South Wales |
Previous military service | Served in the Citizen Military Forces. |
Enlistment date | |
Place of enlistment | Sydney, New South Wales |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 2nd Battalion, 23rd Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/19/3 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A24 Benalla on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 2nd Battalion |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Place of death or wounding | Passchendaele, Ypres, Belgium |
Age at death | 26.4 |
Age at death from cemetery records | 26 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 7), 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 | 31 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Parents: Joseph and Mary BRUNTON, 'Ravenswood', Seven Hills, New South Wales |
Family/military connections | Brothers: 3265 Pte Peter BRUNTON, 7th Light Horse Regiment, returned to Australia, 28 June 1919; 1881 Pte William BRUNTON, 53rd Bn, returned to Australia, 10 January 1918. |
Other details |
War service: Western Front Embarked Sydney, 9 November 1916; disembarked Devonport, England, 9 January 1917; marched into 1st Training Bn, Larkhill. Found guilty, 25 January 1917, of being absent without leave from midnight, 22 January, to 8am, 22 January 1917: awarded 2 days' Field Punishment No 2, and forfeiture of a total of 4 days' pay. Proceeded overseas to France, 3 May 1917; taken on strength, 2nd Bn, in the field, 10 May 1917. Killed in action, Belgium, 4 October 1917. Burial report by 1st Anzac Corps Burial Officer, 5 October 1917. Grave subsequently lost. Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal |
Sources | NAA: B2455, BRUNTON Joseph Edward |