The AIF Project

Arthur Richard ALPHEY

Regimental number2124
Place of birthMelbourne, Victoria
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationPainter
AddressCranbourne, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation26
Height5' 3"
Weight130 lbs
Next of kinFather, George Alphey, Deniliquin, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date16 May 1916
Place of enlistmentMelbourne, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name59th Battalion, 4th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/76/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A67 Orsova on 1 August 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll57th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 25 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
163
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Melbourne, 1 August 1916; disembarked Plymouth, 14 September 1916.

Embarked Folkestone to join the British Expeditionary Force, France, 5 December 1916; marched in, 5th Australian Divisional Base Depot, Etaples, 6 December 1916.

Taken on strength, 57th Bn, in the field, 24 December 1916.

Admitted to 5th Dressing Station (pyrexia of unknown origin), 21 June 1917; transferred to 56th Casualty Clearing Station, 25 June 1917; discharged to duty, 27 July 1917; rejoined unit, in the field, 29 July 1917.

Killed in action, in the field, 25 September 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, ALPHEY Arthur Richard

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