Vincent Ronald BAKER

Regimental number2851
Place of birthEchuca, Victoria
SchoolMoama Public School, New South Wales
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationDriver
AddressMeninya Street, Moama, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation21
Next of kinJohn H Baker, Meninya Street, Moama, New South Wales
Previous military serviceServed for 4 years in the 67th Infantry, Citizen Military Forces.
Enlistment date2 August 1915
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll19 July 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name23rd Battalion, 6th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/40/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A38 Ulysses on 27 October 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll57th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 15 October 1917
Age at death from cemetery records23
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.

Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: John and Emily BAKER, husband of Mrs M. BAKER, Maryborough, Victoria. Native of Moama, New South Wales
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Allotted to and proceeded to join 58th Bn, Zeitoun, 23 February 1916. Transferred to 57th Bn, 15 March 1916.

Admitted to 15th Field Ambulance, Ferry Post, 6 April 1916 (diarrhoea); discharged to duty, 18 April 1916.

Embarked Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 17 June 1917; disembarked Marseilles, France, 23 June 1916.

Admitted to 38th Casualty Clearing Station, 29 November 1916 (trench feet); transferred to 2nd General Hospital, Havre, 30 November 1916; to No. 4 Convalescent Depot, 8 December 1916; to 5th Australian Divisional Base Depot, 17 December 1916; rejoined 57th Bn, 1 August 1917.

On furlough to England, 20 August 1917; rejoined unit from furlough, 3 September 1917.

Killed in action, 15 October 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal