Regimental number | 2079 |
Place of birth | Warkton, New South Wales |
School | Warkton Public School, Warkton, New South Wales |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Farmer |
Address | Bugaldi, New South Wales |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 28 |
Next of kin | Father, John Hellyer, Warkton, New South Wales |
Enlistment date | |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 35th Battalion, 3rd Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/52/2 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A68 Anchises on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 35th Battalion |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Place of death or wounding | France |
Age at death | 31 |
Age at death from cemetery records | 29 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The 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 | 125 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Parents: John and Mary HELLYER, Warkton, New South Wales. Native of Coonabarabran, New South Wales |
Family/military connections | Brother: 369 Driver Wilfred John HELLYER, 3rd Machine Gun Bn, returned to Australia, 18 January 1919. |
Other details |
War service: Western Front Note on Red Cross File: 'No trace Germany. Cert. by Capt. Mills 10-10-19'. Statement, 12070 Sergeant F. STURCH, B Company, 35th Bn, 10 April 1918: 'After the attack on Messines we were holding a line of rough trenches in front of Warneton between 2 and 5 a.m. on 12.6.17.A large high explosive shell landed in left bombing bay and killed five men including Hellyer. Informant was 7th Platoon Sergeant. Lt Parran Officer in Command of the Platoon was killed, so Informant then took charge of the Platoon, examined the bodies including Hellyer's, and took his personal belongings and sent them back to Battalion Headquarters. Hellyer was killed instantly and could not have felt anything. He was buried in or near Ploegstreet Wood. He was a good comrade, and a plucky soldier.' Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal |
Sources | Red Cross File 1310602D |