Regimental number | 4233 |
Date of birth | |
Place of birth | Charters Towers, Queensland |
School | State School, Charters Towers, Queensland |
Other training | Electrical engineering |
Occupation | Assistant shopman |
Address | Townsville, Queensland |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 18 |
Next of kin | Mother, Mrs F C Martin, Anne Street, Charters Towers, Queensland |
Enlistment date | |
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll | |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 9th Battalion, 13th Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/26/4 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board HMAT A55 Kyarra on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | 2nd Lieutenant |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 1st Machine Gun Battalion |
Promotions |
2nd Lieutenant Unit: 21st Machine Gun Company Promotion date: Lieutenant Unit: 21st Machine Gun Company Promotion date: |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Age at death | 19 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 31), 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 | 178 |
Medals |
Military Cross 'For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. His subsection was attacked in the rear by over-powering numbers, and seeing no hope of saving his guns, he caused them to be destroyed, and fought his way through. Later, he organized scattered elements of infantry and organized a successful attack, driving the enemy back.'
Source: 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 169 Date: |
Family/military connections | Brother: Corporal J.J. Martin |
Other details |
War service: Western Front Enlisted, 30 August 1915. Appointed Lance Corporal, 22 December 1916; Corporal, 31 January 1917. Commissioned, 31 January 1917. Taken on strength, 3rd Machine Gun Company, 2 August 1916; 21st Machine Gun Company, 31 January 1917. Medals: Military Cross, British War Medal, Victory Medal |