The AIF Project

Charles James NORMAN

Regimental number3490
Place of birthBallarat, Victoria
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationButcher
AddressHorsham, Victoria
Age at embarkation21
Height5' 10.75"
Weight170 lbs
Next of kinFather, J L Norman, McPherson Street, Horsham, Victoria
Previous military serviceServed for 2 years in the 19th Light Horse, Horsham, Victoria.
Enlistment date26 July 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name5th Battalion, 11th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/22/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A71 Nestor on 11 October 1915
Rank from Nominal RollSergeant
Unit from Nominal Roll5th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 20 September 1917
Age at death from cemetery records23
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 7), 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
44
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: James Leonard and Mary NORMAN. Native of Ballarat, Victoria
Other details

War service: taken on strength, 5th Bn, Tel el Kebir, Egypt, 7 January 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 25 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles,30 March 1916.

Admitted to Field Ambulance, 8 April 1916 (no details); rejoined unit same day. Admitted to 2nd Field Ambulance, 10 April 1916 (dental work); discharged to duty, 14 April 1916.

Appointed Lance Corporal, 1 August 1916; Corporal, 7 October 1916; Sergeant, 14 November 1916.

Admitted to 7th Field Ambulance, 31 May 1917; transferred to 9th Casualty Clearing Station, 1 June 1917; by Ambulance Train to 39th General Hospital, Havre, 6 June 1917; discharged to duty, 2 July 1917; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 33 days. Rejoined Bn, 15 May 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 20 September 1917. Buried about 300 yards S.W. of Glencorse Wood.

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

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