Regimental number | 3240 |
Place of birth | Fremantle, Western Australia |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Harnessmaker |
Address | Langham Road, Claremont, Western Australia |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 19 |
Next of kin | Father, George Henry Pyke, Langham Road, Claremont, Western Australia |
Previous military service | Served in the 86th Infantry, Citizen Military Forces, Fremantle; still serving at time of AIF enlistment. |
Enlistment date | |
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll | |
Place of enlistment | East Claremont, Western Australia |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 28th Battalion, 7th Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/45/2 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT A7 Medic on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 28th Battalion |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 23), 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 | 114 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Commemorated in Fremantle Cemetery, Western Australia. Parents: George Henry (d. 25 February 1945, aged 81) and Minnie (d. 17 March 1911, aged 46) PYKE (both Bu. Fremantle Cemetery) |
Other details |
War service: Egypt, Western Front Disembarked Alexandria, Egypt, 16 February 1916. Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 21 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, France, 27 March 1916. Taken on strength, 28th Bn, 16 June 1916. Wounded in action, 29 July 1916 (shell wound, knee). Admitted to No 3 Canadian General Hospital, Boulogne, 30 July 1916; transferred to No. 7 Convalescent Depot, 8 August 1916; to No. 3 Rest Camp, 21 September 1916. Rejoined Bn, 30 October 1916. Wounded in action, 3-6 November 1916 (shell shock); admitted to 6th General Hospital, Rouen, 8 November 1916; transferred to Convalescent Depot, 11 November 1916; to No 2 Australian General Base Depot, Etaples, 15 November 1917; rejoined Bn, 19 February 1917. Detached to 5th Army as batman, 30 March 1917; rejoined Bn, 6 May 1917. On leave to England, 2 September 1917; rejoined Bn, 15 September 1917. Missing in action, Belgium, 4 October 1917; Court of Enquiry, 19 November 1917, determined fate as 'killed in action'. Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal |
Miscellaneous details | Name recorded incorrectly on Embarkation Roll as Victor Gerald PYKE. |