The AIF Project

Leopold Thomas CARROLL

Regimental number5938
Place of birthCooma, New South Wales
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationAccountant
Address25 George Street, Manly, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation26
Height5' 5"
Weight119 lbs
Next of kinFather
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date23 May 1916
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll23 April 1916
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name18th Battalion, 16th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/35/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A40 Ceramic on 7 October 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll8th Battalion
FateDied of wounds 7 October 1917
Age at death from cemetery records27
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 23), 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
85
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Commemorated in Manly West Cemetery, New South Wales. Parents: Francis Michael (d. 14 September 1938; bu. Manly West Cemetery) and Norah (d. 20 October 1944; bu. Manly West Cemetery) CARROLL, 21 Woods Parade, Manly, New South Wales. Native of Cooma, New South Wales
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked from Sydney, 7 October 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 21 November 1916. Proceeded overseas to France, 13 December 1916; joined 18th Bn, 24 January 1917.

Admitted to 6th Australian Field Ambulance, 10 March 1917 (influenza); to 7th Australian Field Ambulance, 11 March 1917; rejoined unit, 28 March 1917.

Wounded in action, 7 October 1917; died of wounds received in action, Belgium, 7 October 1917; buried, 15 October 1917. Australian Graves Services, London, wrote to Base Records, 1 February 1922: 'The above named soldiers [including L.T. CARROLL] were originally reported to have been buried at Cable Head I In the course of operations Exhumation Parties working over that area were unable to identify the graves of the five soldiers mentioned and as the bodies found in the neighborhood of able Head] were re-interred in eleven different cemeteries it was quite out of the question to erect Special Crosses for those five other ranks.'

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

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