Gordon Stanley HAMILTON

Regimental number3475
Place of birthCobram, Victoria
SchoolCobram State School, Cobram, Victoria
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationRailway shunter
AddressMarket Street, Cobram, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation24
Height6' 0"
Weight161 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs A Hamilton, Market Street, Cobram, Victoria
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date22 August 1915
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll18 October 1915
Place of enlistmentLiverpool, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name2nd Battalion, 11th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/19/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A14 Euripides on 2 November 1915
Rank from Nominal RollGunner
Unit from Nominal Roll14th Field Artillery Brigade
FateKilled in Action 1 October 1917
Place of death or woundingPasschendaele, Ypres, Belgium
Age at death27
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 17), 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
18
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: John and Annie HAMILTON. Native of Cobram, Victoria
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Joined 2nd Bn, Tel el Kebir, 5 February 1916. Transferred to 54th Bn, 14 February 1916; taken on strength, 16 February 1916. Transferred to 5th Division Artillery, 17 March 1916, and posted to 56th Battery.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 20 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 30 June 1916. Transferred to 25th Field Artillery Brigade, 8 July 1916.

Wounded in action; admitted to No. 8 Stationary Hospital, Wimereux, 20 July 1916 (gun shot wound, ankle); transferred to England, 21 July 1916, and admitted to General Military Hospital, Colchester, 22 July 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 1 December 1916; rejoined unit, 6 December 1916.

Transferred to 14th Field Artillery Brigade, 24 January 1917, and posted to 55th Battery, 25 January 1917.

Killed in action, 1 October 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, HAMILTON Gordon Stanley