The AIF Project

Denis Ambrose QUINLAN

Regimental number4870
Place of birthCaniambo, Victoria
SchoolCaniambo West State School, Victoria
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationStud groom
AddressA/c No. 87333 Commonwealth Bank, Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation40
Next of kinBrother, Mr J Quinlan, Arcadia Post Office, Victoria
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date5 November 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name8th Battalion, 15th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/25/5
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A18 Wiltshire on 7 March 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll8th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 20 September 1917
Date of death20 September 1917
Age at death40
Age at death from cemetery records40
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 7), 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
54
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Timothy and Mary QUINLAN (nee Anglin
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 29 May 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 4 June 1916. Joined Bn, 29 July 1916.

Admitted to 15th Field Ambulance, 12 November 1916 (abrasions to feet); rejoined Bn, 20 November 1916.

Admitted to 3rd Australian Field Ambulance, 11 February 1917 (ulcer, right foot); transferred to 3rd Canadian General Hospital, Etaples, 3 March 1917. Transferred to England, 6 March 1917, and admitted to 3rd Australian General Hospital, Brighton. Transferred to 3rd Auxiliary Hospital, Dartford, 16 March 1917; granted furlough, 16 March 1917, to report to Command Depot, Wareham, 31 March 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 25 June 1917; rejoined 8th Bn, 20 July 1917.

Missing in action, 20 September 1917; Court of Enquiry subsequently determined fate as killed in action.

Buried South of Polygon Wood, East of Glencorse Wood, Belgium.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

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