The AIF Project

Robert Andrew Malcolm MURRAY

Place of birthRyde, New South Wales
SchoolWoodford Academy, Sydney Grammar School, New South Wales
Other trainingSydney University, NSW
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationStudent
AddressWentworth Falls, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation22
Next of kinFather, Captain J S Murray, The 'Sand Patch', Wentworth Falls, New South Wales
Previous military serviceServed two years Sydney Grammar School Cadets and two year Sydney University Scouts.
Enlistment date29 September 1915
Rank on enlistment2nd Lieutenant
Unit name45th Battalion, 3rd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/62/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A69 Warilda on 22 May 1916
Rank from Nominal RollLieutenant
Unit from Nominal Roll45th Battalion
Recommendations (Medals and Awards)

Military Cross


Recommendation date: 25 February 1917

Other details from Roll of Honour CircularHe was 2/Lieutenant on 16/3/16 and Lieutenant on 5/2/17. He won M.C.
FateKilled in Action 7 June 1917
Place of death or woundingMessines, Belgium
Age at death24
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
140
Medals

Military Cross

'For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He led his party in the attack with great courage and determination, and by his fine example inspired his men at a critical time. He previously carried out several dangerous reconnaissances and obtained most valuable information.'
Source: 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 133
Date: 21 August 1917

Other details

War service: Western Front

Medals: Military Cross, British War Medal, Victory Medal

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