Donald Sinclair MACCALLUM

Regimental number3177
Date of birth20 June 1890
Place of birthSpringhill, New South Wales
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationDrover
AddressAlton Downs via Rockhampton, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation25
Next of kinUncle, John McKenzie, Laurel Bank, Alton Downs via Rockhampton, Queensland
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date27 October 1916
Place of enlistmentEmerald, Queensland
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name47th Battalion, 8th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/64/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A64 Demosthenes on 22 December 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll47th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Age at death from cemetery records25
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 27), 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
144
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents; Donald (d. 1 July 1896) and Catherine MACCALLUM. Native of Goulburn, New South Wales
Other details

War service: Western Front

Statement, Red Cross File No 1881003L, 5273 Pte W.J. BRIDGES, D Company, 47th Bn, 4 June (2) 1918: 'Informant states that MacCallum belonged to C Company. On 12-10-1917 the Battalion was in action at Passchendaele. They hopped over at daybreak. Just after they had started MacCallum was killed outright by a shell. Informant was about two or three men away from him and saw him fall. It was quite impossible for him to investigate further as he had to continue in the advance and he heard nothing further about him. According to Informant MacCallum was held in good favour by his mates.'

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, MACCALLUM Donald Sinclair
Red Cross File No 1881003L