The AIF Project

Sydney George PORTER

Regimental number4546
Place of birthNarrabeen New South Wales
ReligionMethodist
OccupationLabourer
AddressNewport, via Manly, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation23
Next of kinFather, R. Porter, 'The Avenue,' Newport, via Manly, New South Wales
Enlistment date15 September 1915
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll4 October 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name3rd Battalion, 14th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/20/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board RMS Osterley on 15 January 1916
Regimental number from Nominal Roll4546A
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll53rd Battalion
FateKilled in Action 24 September 1917
Age at death from cemetery records24
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 53), 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
158
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Robert and Ann PORTER, 'Home', The Avenue, Newport, New South Wales
Family/military connectionsBrothers: 1013 Pte William James PORTER, 13th Bn, killed in action, 22 August 1915; 4547 Pte Albert Edward PORTER, 3rd Bn, killed in action, 27 July 1916; 4544 Pte Carl Howard PORTER, 3rd Bn, returned to Australia, 26 September 1919; 3454 Corporal Robert Daniel PORTER, 1st Bn, returned to Australia, 18 January 1919.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

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