James KELLY

Regimental number1160
Place of birthTyrone, Ireland
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationFarmer
AddressKempsey, Maclean River, Kempsey, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation25
Height5' 4"
Weight123 lbs
Next of kinFather, Peter Kelly, Trellick PO, Trellick, Co Tyrone, Ireland
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date3 December 1915
Place of enlistmentRollands Plains, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name35th Battalion, D Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/52/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A24 Benalla on 1 May 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll35th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 25), 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
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 1 May 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 9 July 1916.

Admitted to hospital, 10 July 1916; marched out to 9th Training Bn from hospital, 27 July 1916.

Admitted to Isolation Ward (venereal disease: pay stopped), 30 October 1916; admitted to 1st Australian Dermatological Hospital, Bulford, 15 November 1916; marched in to 9th Training Bn from Bulford, 17 May 1917; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 139 days.

Proceeded overseas to France, 25 April 1917; rejoined Bn, in the field, 21 May 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 12 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, KELLY James