The AIF Project

William NOBLE

Regimental number1390
Place of birthLeith, Scotland
SchoolPublic School, Scotland
Age on arrival in Australia16.6
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationGardener
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation26
Height5' 6"
Weight148 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs K Noble, Hermitage Place, Edinburgh, Scotland
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date12 November 1914
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name11th Battalion, 2nd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/28/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT A50 Itonus on 22 February 1915
Regimental number from Nominal RollR1390
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll11th Battalion
Other details from Roll of Honour CircularServed at Gallipoli; returned to Australia sick early in 1916. Re-enlisted, killed in action in 1918.
FateKilled in Action 13 January 1918
Place of death or woundingFrance
Age at death29.10
Age at death from cemetery records29
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 17), 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
63
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: William and Katherine NOBLE; husband of Annie WALKER (formerly NOBLE), 43 Alma Street, Fremantle, Western Australia. Native of Leith, Scotland
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Retained as Permanent Beach Party, Gallipoli, 8 July 1915. Admitted to 4th Field Ambulance, 9 July 1915 (diarrhoea); discharged to duty, 12 July 1915. To hospital, 17 July 1915; transferred to 1st Australian Stationary Hospital, Lemnos, 18 July 1915; discharged to duty, 25 July 1915. Admitted to 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station,25 July 1915 (gastritis); transferred to Mudros, 25 July 1915, and admitted to Lowland Division Casualty Clearing Station, 26 July 1915; embarked on HS 'Ionian', 3 August 1915; disembarked Alexandria, 9 August 1915, and admitted to 2nd Australian General Hospital, Ghezireh (colitis); transferred to No. 2 Convalescent Depot, Mena, 23 August 1915. Embarked from Suez on board HMAT 'Wandilla' for invaliding to Australia, 13 December 1915.

Re-embarked from Fremantle on board A8 'Argyllshire', as Private, 11th Bn, 22nd Reinforcement, 9 November 1916; disembarked Devonport, England, 10 January 1917. Promoted Acting Corporal, 11 January 1917. Proceeded overseas to France, 5 April 1917. Reverted to permanent grade of Private.

Admitted to 51st General Hospital, Etaples, 13 April 1917 (venereal disease); discharged to duty, 14 June 1917.

Killed in action, 13 January 1918.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal

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