The AIF Project

Harold Seymour RAY

Regimental number1526
Place of birthSeymour, Victoria
SchoolState School, Seymour, Victoria
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationFarmer
AddressAlberton, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation33
Next of kinEleanor Ray, Alberton, Victoria
Previous military serviceServed for 2 years in the Senior Cadets.
Enlistment date6 March 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name24th Battalion, 1st Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/41/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A14 Euripides on 8 May 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll24th Battalion
Other details from Roll of Honour CircularWounded Pozieres, France.
FateKilled in Action 9 October 1917
Place of death or woundingYpres, Belgium
Age at death34
Age at death from cemetery records34
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe 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
102
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: William and Eleanor RAY. Native of Seymour, Victoria
Family/military connectionsBrother: 3614 Pte Robert Hudson RAY, 24th Bn, returned to Australia, 31 January 1918.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Proceeded to Gallipoli, 30 August 1915. Admitted to 6th Field Ambulance, 8 November 1915 (eczema);rejoined unit on Mudros, 24 December 1915. Disembarked Alexandria, 10 January 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 20 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 26 March 1916.

Wounded in action, 5 August 1916 (shell wound, right arm); admitted to 1st Canadian General Hospital, Etaples, 7 August 1916;transferred to 6th Convalescent Depot, 3 September 1916;discharged to duty, 5 September 1916.

Admitted to 38th Casualty Clearing Station, 30 November 1916 (scabies); transferred to No. 2 General Hospital, Havre, 9 December 1916; rejoined Bn, 9 January 1917.

Admitted to 2nd Australian Field Ambulance, 1 March 1917; transferred to Corps Scabies Station (septic sores), 1 March 1917; rejoined Bn, 9 March 1917.

Admitted to 5th Australian Field Ambulance, 30 April 1917 (scabies); rejoined Bn, 20 May 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 9 October 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal

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