The AIF Project

Martin James EAGER

Regimental number3353
Place of birthMount Morgan, Queensland
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationStockman
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation18.8
Height5' 6"
Weight124 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs Francis Mary McKenna, 363 Ballsover Street, Rockhampton, Queensland
Previous military serviceServed for 1 year in the Cadets.
Enlistment date7 February 1916
Place of enlistmentRockhampton, Queensland
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name31st Battalion, 7th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/48/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board HMAT A49 Seang Choon on 4 May 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll42nd Battalion
FateKilled in Action 4 October 1917
Date of death4 October 1917
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
135
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Embarked Hobart, 10 April 1916; disembarked Suez, 15 June 1916.

Embarked Alexandria for England, 2 August 1916; marched in to 5th Training Bn, Larkhill, 22 August 1916.

Admitted to 1st Australian Dermatological Hospital, Bulford, 22 August 1916; discharged, 31 August 1916; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 10 days.

Sick to hospital, 22 October 1916; admitted to Parkhouse Military Hospital, 11 January 1917; discharged, 5 March 1917; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 54 days.

Marched in to 11th Training Bn, 5 March 1917.

Found guilty, 15 March 1917, of making a false declaration at 1st Australian Dermatological Hospital, Bulford: awarded 14 days' Field Punishment No 2.

Proceeded overseas to France, 29 May 1917; rejoined 42nd Bn, in the field, 19 June 1917.

Killed in action, 4 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, EAGER Martin James

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