The AIF Project

Charles ASKIE

Regimental number2523
Place of birthMackay, Queensland
SchoolCessnock Public School, New South Wales
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationClipping
AddressAnnie Street, Allandale Road, Cessnock, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation18
Height5' 7.5"
Weight133 lbs
Next of kinFather, John Askie, Cessnock, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date19 September 1916
Place of enlistmentRutherford, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name35th Battalion, 5th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/52/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A11 Ascanius on 25 October 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll35th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Age at death19
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 25), 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
124
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 25 October 1916; disembarked Devonport, England, 28 December 1916; marched into 9th Training Bn, 28 December 1916.

Admitted to Fargo Military Hospital, 5 February 1917(pyrexia, unknown origin); discharged from hospital, 13 February 1917.

Found guilty, Durrington, 14 May 1917, of being absent without leave from midnight, 8 May, till apprehended by the Military Police at 11.30 pm, 10 May 1917: awarded 12 days' Field Punishment No 2, and forfeited 12 days' pay.

Proceeded overseas to France, 23 July 1917; taken on strength, 35th Bn, in the field, 10 August 1917.

Reported missing, 12 October 1917.

Now, 6 March 1918, reported 'Killed in action, 12 October 1918.'

Statement, Red Cross File, 2675 Pte C.W. McKENNON, D Company, 35th Bn (patient, 3rd Australian Auxiliary Hospital, Dartford, England), 4 January 1918: 'I saw him killed at Passchendaele. He was shot though the leg and groin with a machine gun bullet, and only lived a few minutes. He simply bled to death. Casualty happened during an attack. We left him a shell hole. I knew him very well, he came away from Australia with me, by the S.S. "Ascanius" which left there 25.10.16. I was wounded a couple hours later, after advancing about a mile, and do not know place of burial and cannot refer to anyone for particulars.'

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, ASKIE Charles
Red Cross File No 0150401B

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