Phillip Carl William QUAST

Regimental number3220
Place of birthBeenleigh, Queensland
SchoolState School, Beenleigh, Queensland
ReligionLutheran
OccupationLabourer
AddressBeenleigh, SC Line, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation24
Height5' 11"
Weight148 lbs
Next of kinFather, Phillip Herman Quast, Beenleigh, SC Line, Queensland
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date17 November 1916
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name52nd Battalion 8th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/69/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A64 Demosthenes on 23 December 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll52nd Battalion
FateKilled in Action 26 September 1917
Place of death or woundingZonnebeke, Belgium
Age at death25
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
156
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Philipp and Christine QUAST, Main Street, Beenleigh, Queensland
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 22 December 1917; disembarked Plymouth, England, 3 March 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 25 June 1917; taken on strength, 52nd Bn, 16 July 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 26 September 1917.

Statement, Red Cross File No 2220509K, 3156 Pte F.W. SILVER, , 52nd Bn (patient, No 3 General Hospital, Le Treport, France), 11 December 1917: 'I can't tell you his christian name but he came from Benleigh (sic), Queensland and was in A. Coy. He was taking cover with others in a shell hole in the support lines to the right of Anzac House when a shell landed just along side the shell hole. Quast was killed outright but more from the concussion than anything else. He was buried by his mates near Anzac House, this side of Passchendaele.'

Second statement, 3624A Pte P. WEIR, B Company, 52nd Bn (patient, 3rd Australian Auxiliary Hospital, Dartford, England), 20 December 1917: 'I saw him killed at Ypres. He was caught by a shell[,] fragments of which hit him on the back of the head, neck, and thigh, death being instantaneous. I knew him very well, he was the only man of that name in the Coy. Casualty happened in our support lines. I saw his grave in the grave in the Military cemetery at Ypres and it was marked with a cross bearing his number, name, and Unit.'

Third statement, 2989 Pte S. THOMAS, B Company, 52nd Bn, 1 January 1918: 'We called him "Phil". I knew him slightly, he worked in a grocer's shop before joining up. We were in supports opposite Anzac House on the Ypres sector on the 26th Septr. Quast was alonglside of me and a shell dropped near us and killed Quast instantly. I helped to carry him out. We put his body in a shell hole alongside another man and left him there - I came back that night intending to bury Quast, and I found they had been buried where we left them. There was nothing put up to mark the grave.'

Fourth statement, 3177 Pte J. HODGE, 52nd Bn (patient, 1st Australian Auxiliary Hospital, Harefield, England), 19 December 1917: 'Ypres in the trench. Killed at once by shell, hit straight in the face, split his head open. Buried just where killed. Bayonet stuck in the ground to mark the grave, name on a piece of paper inside a bottle. I saw this.'

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, QUAST Phillip Carl William
Red Cross File No 2220509K