The AIF Project

Albert Walter ACOTT

Regimental number6213
Date of birth1890
Place of birthLaura, South Australia
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationStation hand
Addressc/o Cork Station via Winton, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation25
Height5' 3"
Weight124 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs S A Acott, Laura, South Australia
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date10 April 1916
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll10 April 1916
Place of enlistmentTownsville, Queensland
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name9th Battalion, 20th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/26/4
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board HMAT A46 Clan Mcgillivray on 7 September 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll9th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 20 September 1917
Place of death or woundingMenin Road, Ypres, Belgium
Age at death26
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
54
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Commemorated on (new) Laura District Honour Roll, South Australia.
Family/military connectionsBrother: 77 Gunner William Thomas ACOTT, 14th Field Artillery Brigade, returned to Australia, 20 December 1918.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Brisbane, 7 September 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 2 November 1916; marched into 3rd Training Bn, Perham Downs, England, 9 November 1916.

Admitted to Parkhouse Hospital (mumps), England, 14 December 1916; rejoined 3rd Training Bn, Perham Downs, 7 January 1917.

Admitted to Fargo Hospital (pyrexia), Perham Downs, 8 February 1917; rejoined 3rd Training Bn, Perham Downs, 15 February 1917.

Embarked Folkestone to join the British Expeditionary Force, France, 10 April 1917.

Taken on strength, 9th Bn, France, 18 April 1917.

Wounded in action, France, 7 May 1917; admitted 3rd Casualty Clearing Station (shrapnel wound, arm), 7 May 1917; admitted to 7th Canadian General Hospital, Etaples, 7 May 1917; embarked Calais for England, 15 May 1917; admitted to 1st Southern General Hospital, Birmingham, 15 May 1917; discharged for furlough, 11 June 1917.

Marched into 1st Comm. Depot, Perham Downs, 25 June 1917.

Marched into Overseas Training Depot, Perham Downs, 29 June 1917.

Embarked Southampton to rejoin unit in the field, 16 July 1917; marched into 1st Australian Division Base Depot, Havre, 17 July 1917.

Proceeded to rejoin unit, 28 July 1917; rejoined 9th Bn in the field, 5 August 1917.

Killed in action, Menin Road, 20 September 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, ACOTT Albert Walter

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