The AIF Project

Frank AMPHLETT

Date of birth21 December 1876
Place of birthSydney New South Wales
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationWool auctioneer
Address'Clent', McLaren Street, North Sydney, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation39
Height5' 10.5"
Weight150 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs Mary M Amphlett, 'Clent', McLaren Street, North Sydney, New South Wales
Previous military serviceServed for 6 months in 35th Regiment, Citizen Military Forces; still serving at time of NZEF enlistment..
Enlistment date20 January 1916
Rank on enlistmentLieutenant
Unit name35th Battalion, D Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/52/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A24 Benalla on 1 May 1916
Rank from Nominal RollCaptain
Unit from Nominal Roll35th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Age at death from cemetery records40
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 17), 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
124
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Mr and Mrs Edward AMPHLETT; husband of Ella AMPHLETT, George Street, Sydney
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 1 May 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 9 July 1916.

Promoted Captain, 1 August 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 21 November 1916.

Detached to 2nd Army School of Instruction, 28 January 1917; rejoined unit from detachment, 26 February 1917.

Seconded for duty as Commandant, 2nd Army Training Area, 14 April 1917; resumed Regimental duty, 28 May 1917.

Killed in action, 12 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, AMPHLETT Frank

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