Regimental number | 2367 |
Place of birth | Taroom, Queensland |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Stockman |
Address | Eidsvold, Queensland |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 22 |
Height | 5' 6" |
Weight | 144 lbs |
Next of kin | Father, Richard Aitken, Cania Diggings, Eidsvold, Queensland |
Previous military service | Nil |
Enlistment date | |
Place of enlistment | Cloncurry, Queensland |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 52nd Battalion, 5th Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/69/3 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board HMAT A49 Seang Choon on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 52nd Battalion |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Age at death | 23 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 29), 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 | 154 |
Other details |
War service: Western Front Embarked Brisbane, 19 September 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 9 December 1916. Found guilty, 25 January 1917, of (1) disobeying an order given by a superior officer and (2) striking an NCO, Codford, 13 January 1917: sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour for 2 years; sentence commuted to 1 year detention and forfeiture of 377 days' pay. Sentence remitted by Order of the War Office, 21 June 1917. Embarked Folkestone to join the British Expeditionary Force, France, 2 July 1917; marched in, 4th Australian Divisional Base Depot, Havre, 3 July 1917. Taken on strength, 52nd Bn, in the field, 22 July 1917. Killed in action, Belgium, 19 October 1917. Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal |
Sources | NAA: B2455, AITKEN George Robert |