The AIF Project

Frederick William BASSETT

Regimental number6532
Place of birthRoebourne, Western Australia
SchoolRoebourne State School, Western Australia
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationStation hand
AddressRoebourne, Western Australia
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation21
Height5' 7"
Weight112 lbs
Next of kinFather, C A Bassett, Roebourne, Western Australia
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date1 January 1917
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll15 March 1916
Place of enlistmentBlackboy Hill, Western Australia
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name28th Battalion, 19th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/45/4
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT A28 Miltiades on 29 January 1917
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll28th Battalion
FateDied of wounds 20 September 1917
Place of death or woundingFrance
Age at death23.9
Age at death from cemetery records22
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
112
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Charles Alfred and Mary Jane BASSETT, Roebourne, Western Australia
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Fremantle, 29 January 1917; disembarked Devonport, England, 27 March 1917; marched in to 7th Training Bn, Rollestone, 28 March 1917.

Admitted to Parkhouse Hospital, 4 May 1917 (mumps; discharged to duty, 22 May 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 30 July 1917; taken on strength, 28th Bn, in the field, 18 August 1917.

Died of wounds in action, 20 September 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, BASSETT Frederick William

Print format    


© The AIF Project 2024, UNSW Canberra. Not to be reproduced without permission.