Lawrence Christopher ALEXANDER

Regimental number1250
Place of birthBeaudesert, Queensland
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationGrazier
AddressWoodvale, Taroom, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation23
Height5' 10"
Weight143 lbs
Next of kinFather, John Alexander, Woodvale, Taroom, Queensland
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date7 February 1916
Place of enlistmentToowoomba, Queensland
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name42nd Battalion, B Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/59/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A30 Borda on 5 June 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll42nd Battalion
FateKilled in Action 9 June 1917
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
135
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 5 June 1916; disembarked Southampton, England, 23 July 1916.

Embarked Southampton to join the British Expeditionary Force in France, 25 November 1916.

Admitted to 10th Field Ambulance (sick), in the field, 26 December 1916; transferred to No. 7 General Hospital, St Omer (mumps), 26 December 1916; discharged to Base Details, St Omer, 16 January 1917.

Rejoined 42nd Bn, in the field, 17 January 1917.

Admitted to 9th Australian Field Ambulance (tonsilitis and diarrhoea), 22 March 1917; transferred to 10th Australian Field Ambulance, 24 March 1917; transferred to reinforcements camp, in the field, 27 March 1917; rejoined 42nd Bn, in the field, 29 March 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 9 June 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, ALEXANDER Lawrence Christopher