Reginald ALDERSON

Regimental number755
Date of birth1879
Place of birthGrafton, New South Wales
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationLabourer
AddressClifton, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation36
Height5' 7.75"
Weight182 lbs
Next of kinBrother, Norman Alderson, Grafton, Clarence River, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date20 November 1915
Place of enlistmentToowoomba, Queensland
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name42nd Battalion, D Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/59/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A30 Borda on 5 June 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll42nd Battalion
FateKilled in Action 4 October 1917
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
135
Family/military connectionsBrother: 2274 Gunner Percy ALDERSON, 3rd Field Artillery Brigade, killed in action, 19 August 1915.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Found guilty, 23 January 1916, of being absent without leave, 20 January 1916 to 23 January 1916: awarded 7 days detention, forfeits 4 days pay.

Found guilty, 15 April 1916, of being absent without leave, Thompson's Paddock Camp, 6.00am, 8 April 1916 to 10.00pm, 9 April 1916: awarded 7 days confined to barracks.

Found guilty, 22 April 1916, of being absent without leave, Thompson's Paddock Camp, 6.00am 18 April 1916 to 11.00pm, 18 April 1916: awarded 14 days confined to barracks.

Found guilty, 17 May 1916, of (1) drunkenness and (2) disobeying a camp standing order by breaking through a camp fence, Thompson's Paddock Camp 10.30pm, 17 May 1916: awarded 3 days confined to barracks.

Embarked Sydney, 5 June 1916; disembarked, Southampton, 23 July 1916.

Embarked Southampton to join the British Expeditionary Force, France, 25 November 1916.

Marched in, 3rd Division School, in the field, 25 March 1917.

Marched out to 42nd Bn, in the field, 1 April 1917.

Attached, 7th Machine Gun Company, in the field, 27 May 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 4 October 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, ALDERSON Reginald