The AIF Project

Randolph ADAMSON

Regimental number359
Place of birthSalisbury Plains, Uralla, New South Wales
SchoolHanging Rock and Bendemeer and Hamilton Public Schools, New South Wales
ReligionMethodist
OccupationCoachbuilder
AddressPublic School, Glenoake, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation18
Next of kinFather, George Adamson, Public School, Glenoake, New South Wales
Previous military serviceServed for 2 years in the Cadets; served briefly in the 12th Infantry, Citizen Forces
Enlistment date15 January 1916
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll16 January 1916
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name35th Battalion, B Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/52/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A24 Benalla on 1 May 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll35th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 7 June 1917
Place of death or woundingMessines, Belgium
Date of death7 June 1917
Age at death19.10
Age at death from cemetery records19
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
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: George and Anne ADAMSON, Public School, Glenoak, Mailand, New South Wales. Native of Salisbury Plains, New South Wales
Family/military connectionsBrother: 2517 Pte Thomas ADAMSON, 35th Bn, returned to Australia, 24 August 1918.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 1 May 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 9 July 1916.

Found guilty, 17 November 1916, of being absent without leave, 10.00am to 7.00pm, 13 October 1916: awarded 7 days confined to barracks and forfeits 1 days pay.

Embarked Southampton to join British Expeditionary Force, France, 21 November 1916.

Killed in action, Belgium, 7 June 1917.

Buried at map reference: O.31.a.5.8 (western outskirts of Bois L'Abbe).

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, ADAMSON Randolph

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