The AIF Project

Frank Radford POMERY

Regimental number714
Place of birthMiram Victoria
ReligionProtestant
OccupationFarmer
AddressServiceton, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation19
Next of kinFather, H J Pomery, Serviceton, Victoria
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date29 October 1914
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name8th Light Horse Regiment, 2nd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number10/13/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A26 Armadale on 12 February 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll60th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 26 September 1917
Age at death from cemetery records24
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 29), 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
170
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Henry and Alice POMERY, Oakhurst, Serviceton, Victoria
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Taken on strength, 9th Light Horse Regiment, Gallipoli, 2 August 1915. Wounded in action, 7 August 1915 (gun shot wound, right arm); admitted to Tighe Military Hospital, Malta, 12 August 1915. Transferred to England, 7 October 1915; admitted to 3rd Western General Hospital, Cardiff, 17 October 1915. Discharged to AIF Depot, Abbeywood, 13 April 1916 ('C' Class: temporarily unfit). Discharged to Monte Video, Weymouth, 1 June 1916. Attached to AIF Administrative Headquarters, London, 31 March-11 May 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 27 May 1917;marched out to unit, 18 June 1917.

Admitted to 7th Australian Field Ambulance, 5 July 1917; transferred to 39th General Hospital, Havre, 9 July 1917; discharged to Base Depot, 30 August 1917. Total period of treatment for venereal disease: 57 days. Rejoined unit, 21 September 1917.

Killed in action, 26 September 1917.

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

Print format    


© The AIF Project 2024, UNSW Canberra. Not to be reproduced without permission.