The AIF Project

Charles Henry HAAR

Regimental number5611
Place of birthNhill, Victoria
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationGripman
Address9 Moore Street, South Yarra, Victoria
Marital statusMarried
Age at embarkation34
Next of kinWife, Mrs Margaret Haar, 9 Moore Street, South Yarra, Victoria
Enlistment date3 May 1916
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll5 January 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name22nd Battalion, 15th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/39/4
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A9 Shropshire on 25 September 1916
Rank from Nominal RollLance Corporal
Unit from Nominal Roll22nd Battalion
Other details from Roll of Honour Circular'The deceased soldier twice served in the AIF. First in 7th Battalion and in 22nd Battalion'. Details from Margaret Haar, Wife, 156 Donald Street, Brunswick, Victoria
FateKilled in Action 4 October 1917
Place of death or woundingZonnebeke, Belgium
Age at death39
Age at death from cemetery records35
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 23), 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
98
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Herman and Elizabeth HAAR; husband of Margaret HAAR, 156 Donald Street, Brunswick, Victoria
Family/military connectionsCousin: 722 Pte Peter PETERSON (alias PALMER), 21st Bn, killed in action, 23 November 1915.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Admitted to No. 2 General Hospital, Mena, Cairo, 10 August 1915 (constipation); discharged 27 August 1915. Commenced return to Australia for discharge on 'Euripides', 29 August 1915; discharged, 9 November 1915 (medically unfit).

Re-enlisted, 3 May 1916, embarked with 15th Reinforcements, 22nd Bn, from Melbourne on board HT 'Shropshire', 25 September 1916; disembarked England, 10 November 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 13 December 1916; taken on strength, 22nd Bn, 18 December 1916.

To hospital, 16 April 1917 (influenza); transferred to 3rd Stationary Hospital, Rouen, 21 April 1917; rejoined Bn, 11 May 1917.

Appointed Lance Corporal, 4 June 1917.

Reported missing in action, Belgium, 4 October 1917; fate confirmed as 'killed in action' by Court of Inquiry, 5 May 1918.

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

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