The AIF Project

James Brewster COULL

Regimental number956
Place of birthMontrose, Forfarshire, Scotland
School Senior School, Scotland
Age on arrival in Australia25
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationPlumber
Address36 Blencowe Street, Leederville, Western Australia
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation28.4
Height5' 6"
Weight143 lbs
Next of kinFather, James Brewster Coull, 23A King Street, Ferryden, Montrose, Scotland
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date2 February 1916
Place of enlistmentPerth, Western Australia
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name44th Battalion, Headquarters
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/61/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT A29 Suevic on 6 June 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll44th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 28 June 1917
Miscellaneous details (Nominal Roll)Date of death incorrectly entered on Nominal Roll as 28 June 1919.
Place of death or woundingWulverghem, Messines, Belgium
Age at death29
Age at death from cemetery records29
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 27), 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
137
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: James and Agnes COULL, 23 King Street Ferryden, Montrose, Scotland
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Fremantle, 6 June 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 21 July 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 25 November 1916.

Admitted to 11th Divisional Rest Station, 20 December 1916 (influenza); rejoined Bn, 25 December 1916.

Wounded in action, 27 June 1917 (gun shot wound, left side face); admitted to 9th Australian Field Ambulance; returned to duty same day.

Killed in action, 28 June 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, COULL James Brewster

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