The AIF Project

Archibald RADBURN

Regimental number1647
Place of birthCarcoar, New South Wales
SchoolPublic School
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationLabourer
AddressMandurama, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation22
Next of kinMother, Mrs Bridget Radburn, Abercrombie River near Tuena, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date29 January 1916
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name45th Battalion, 2nd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/62/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A40 Ceramic on 14 April 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll45th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 7 June 1917
Place of death or woundingMessines, Belgium
Age at death22
Age at death from cemetery records24
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
140
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Matthew and Bridget RADBURN. Native of Trunkey Creek, New South Wales
Family/military connectionsBrothers: 1728 Pte Ambrose RADBURN, 26th Bn, killed in action, 5 July 1918; 2714 Pte John RADBURN, 13th Bn, returned to Australia, 5 September 1919; 2715 Pte Nathaniel RADBURN, 45th Bn, returned to Australia, 12 May 1918.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

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