Regimental number | 2657 |
Place of birth | Warrnambool, Victoria |
Religion | Presbyterian |
Occupation | Hewer |
Marital status | Married |
Age at embarkation | 33 |
Height | 5' 7.5" |
Weight | 152 lbs |
Next of kin | Wife, Mrs Olive Blanch Forbes, Nannup, Western Australia |
Previous military service | Nil |
Enlistment date | |
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll | |
Place of enlistment | Bunbury, Western Australia |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 48th Battalion, 6th Reinforcement |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT Port Melbourne on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 48th Battalion |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The 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. |
Other details |
War service: Western Front Embarked Fremantle, 30 October 1916; disembarked Devonport, England, 28 December 1916. Proceeded overseas to France, 4 February 1917; taken on strength, 48th Bn, in the field, 10 February 1917. Reported missing in action, 12 October 1917; Court of Inquiry, 8 April 1918, concluded: 'Killed in action, 12 October 1917.' Note on Red Cross File No 1080805M: 'No trace Germany. Cert. by Capt. Mills 10-10-19.' Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal |
Sources | NAA: B2455, FORBES Ashley McDonald
Red Cross File No 1080805M |