The AIF Project

Joseph Edward BAYLIS

Regimental number6234
Place of birthSydney, New South Wales
SchoolPublic School, New South Wales
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationLabourer
Address11 Watkins Street, Newtown, Sydney, New South Wales
Marital statusMarried
Age at embarkation36
Next of kinWife, Mrs B M Baylis, 11 Watkins Street, Newtown, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date3 April 1916
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll16 March 1914
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name3rd Battalion, 20th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/20/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A14 Euripides on 9 September 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll3rd Battalion
FateKilled in Action 16 October 1917
Place of death or woundingBelgium
Date of death6 October 1917
Age at death38
Age at death from cemetery records38
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 7), 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
35
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Joseph Edward and Emma BAYLIS, husband of Bessie M. BAYLIS, 'Berrima', Clarmont Street, Campsie, New South Wales
Family/military connectionsBrother: 6221 Pte George Thomas BAYLIS, 3rd Machine Gun Bn, returned to Australia, 12 June 1919.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked from Sydney, 9 September 1916; disembarked Plymouth, 26 October 1916. While at sea was accidentally injured in a boxing tournament with No. 6219 Pte Barclay, 22 September 1916. Board of Enquiry considered that the injuries were accidental and that no blame is attachable to any person concerned. Admitted to Devonport Hospital, 26 October 1916 (fractured ulna); transferred to 3rd Auxiliary Hospital, Dartford, 31 October 1916; discharged to No. 2 Command Depot, Weymouth, 12 November 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 4 February 1917; taken on strength, 3rd Bn, 12 February 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 6 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

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