The AIF Project

George David QUAILEY

Regimental number2981
Place of birthGrafton, New South Wales
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationIronmonger
AddressLismore, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation31
Next of kinMother, Mrs Bridget Quailey, Conway Street, Lismore, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date25 August 1916
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name49th Battalion, 7th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/66/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board HMAT A74 Marathon on 27 October 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll49th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 7 June 1917
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
149
Family/military connectionsBrother: 2623 Pte Joseph QUAILEY, 38th Bn, returned to Australia, 20 November 1918.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked from Brisbane, 27 October 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 9 January 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 9 May 1917; taken on strength, 49th Bn, 13 May 1917.

Admitted to 76th Field Ambulance, 18 May 1917 (abcess); rejoined unit, 22 May 1917.

Reported missing in action, Belgium, 7 June 1917; confirmed as killed in action, 7 June 1917.

Buried by Rev. H. CLARK, near Messines; grave subsequently lost.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

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