The AIF Project

James Herbert COSTELLOE

Regimental number234
Place of birthCurrabubula, New South Wales
SchoolCurrabubula Public School, New South Wales
Other trainingNil
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationFarm labourer
AddressCurrabubula, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation18
Next of kinFather, J Costelloe, Currabubula, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date7 March 1916
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name33rd Battalion, A Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/50/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A74 Marathon on 4 May 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll1st Battalion
FateKilled in Action 7 November 1917
Place of death or woundingFrance
Age at death20
Age at death from cemetery records20
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe 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
28
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: James and Louisa COSTELLOE, Currabubula, New South Wales
Family/military connectionsBrother: 1543 Pte Robert Thomas COSTELLO, 1st Bn, killed in action, 5 November 1916.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked from Sydney, 4 May 1916; disembarked Devonport, England, 9 July 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 16 September 1916; proceeded to join 1st Bn, 30 September 1916.

Admitted to 1st New Zealand Stationary Hospital, Amiens, 23 October 1916 (influenza); to 8th General Hospital, Rouen, 6 November 1916. Transferred to England, 12 November 1916, and admitted to 2nd Southern General Hospital, 15 November 1916. Transferred to 2nd Auxiliary Hospital, 24 November 1916; to No. 2 Command Depot, 5 December 1916; to No. 4 Command Depot, 10 January 1917. Found guilty, 31 March 1917, of failing to report for Guard duty when warned: awarded 2 days' Field Punishment No. 2 and forfeiture of 3 days' pay. Admitted to 16th Field Ambulance, 5 September 1917 (ingrown toenail).

Proceeded overseas to France, 17 October 1917; taken on strength, 1st Bn, Belgium, 25 October 1917.

Killed in action, 7 November 1917

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

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