The AIF Project

Harold Thomas CUMMINGS

Regimental number3139
Date of birth23 June 1893
Place of birthMitcham, South Australia
SchoolMitcham Public School, South Australia; St Marcus' School
ReligionBaptist
OccupationLabourer
AddressPrinces Road, Upper Mitcham, South Australia
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation23
Height5' 11.5"
Weight144 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs Sarah Ann Cummings, Princes Road, Upper Mitcham, South Australia
Previous military serviceNil (previously rejected for AIF enlistment on account of being medically unfit)
Enlistment date26 October 1916
Place of enlistmentAdelaide, South Australia
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name50th Battalion, 8th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/67/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board HMAT A35 Berrima on 16 December 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll50th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 27 September 1917
Place of death or woundingPozieres, Somme Sector, France
Age at death24
Age at death from cemetery records24
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 29), 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
150
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: John and Sarah CUMMINGS, Princes Road, Mitcham, South Australia
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Adelaide, 16 December 1916; admitted to ship's hospital, at sea, 8 February 1917; discharged from ship's hospital, 13 February 1917 (no further details recorded); disembarked Devonport, England, 16 February 1917.

Marched into 15th Training Bn, Hurdcott, 21 February 1917; marched into 13th Training Bn, Codford, 6 March 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 25 June 1917; marched into 4th Australian Division Base Depot, Havre, 26 June 1917.

Taken on strength, 50th Bn, in the field, 15 July 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 27 September 1917.

Buried nr Westhoek, 2 miles SW of Zonnebeke, Belgium; grave subsequently lost.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

Mother wrote , 15 November 1918, to General Pau, head of the French mission which visited Australia in 1918, who replied: 'Dear Madam, I am in receipt of your letter of the 15th instant, and shall be glad to do all I can to locate the grave of your son who fell in France. It would, however, help me in my enquiries if you could kindly furnish me as near as possible with the name of the place where he was killed, and if possible where buried. I sympathy [sic] with you very deeply in the loss of such a brave boy, believe me.' Mrs Cummings replied, 23 November 1918: 'Dear Sir, Having received your very kind letter of the 23rd instant and thanking you kindly for writing, but all we know is that our dear Boy No 3139 Pte H.T. Cummings was killed in the Battle of Pozieres and is buried near the racecourse.'

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