The AIF Project

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.

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Embarked Brisbane, 4 May 1916; disembarked Suez, 15 June 1916.

Embarked Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 29 July 1916.

Found guilty, 19 September 1916, of conduct to the prejudice of Military Discipline: breaking Camp at 1730, 15 September, and remaining absent till arrested at 0400, 18 September 1916: awarded 168 hours' detention, forfeiture of of total of 11 days' pay, and 7/- cost.

Marched in to 2nd Australian Division Base Depot, France, from England, 2 October 1916.

Admitted to 18th General Hospital, 8 October 1916 (venereal disease: syphilis); transferred to 51st General Hospital, 14 October 1916; discharged to Base Depot, 3 November 1916; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 26 days.

Found guilty, 21 December 1916, of being out of bounds: forfeited 4 days' pay.

Taken on strength, 25th Bn, in the field, 23 December 1916.

Admitted to 6th Field Ambulance, 8 February 1917, and transferred to Divisional Rest Station (influenza); rejoined Bn, 1 March 1917.

Wounded in action, 3 April 1917 (gun shot wound, right arm), and admitted to 5th Australian Field Ambulance, and transferred to 3rd Casualty Clearing Station, 4 May 1917; to Ambulance Train, 4 May 1917, and admitted to 3rd Stationary Hospital, Rouen, 4 May 1917; discharged to No 2 Convalescent Depot, Rouen, 7 May 1917; to No 11 Convalescent Depot, 11 May 1917; discharged to Base Depot, 1 June 1917.

Found guilty, 8 June 1917, of being out of bounds: trespassing in and out of Les Ardenies, 7 June 1917: awarded 28 days' Field Punishment No 1.

Proceeded to rejoin Bn, 28 June 1917; rejoined Bn, in the field, 30 June 1917.

Detached to 7th Machine Gun Company for duty, 26 July 1917.

Found guilty, 21 July 1917, of being absent without leave from 9.30 pm, 20 July, until 6 am, 21 July 1917: forfeited 7 days' pay.

Killed in action, Belgium, 10 October 1917.