The AIF Project

Albert Arthur REYNOLDS

Regimental number2199
Place of birthSurry Hills, New South Wales
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationLabourer
AddressBourke Street, Darlinghurst, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation19
Next of kinFather, W Reynolds, Bourke Street, Darlinghurst, New South Wales
Previous military serviceServed in the Royal Australian Field Artillery (still serving at time of AIF enlistment).
Enlistment date19 April 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name2nd Battalion, 6th Reinforcement
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT Karoola on 16 June 1915
Rank from Nominal RollSergeant
Unit from Nominal Roll54th Battalion
Recommendations (Medals and Awards)

Mention in Despatches


Awarded, and promulgated, 'London Gazette', second Supplement, No. 30107 (1 June 1917); 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 169 (4 October 1917).

FateKilled in Action 24 September 1917
Age at death from cemetery records22
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
159
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Arthur and Mary REYNOLDS. Native of Sydney
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Taken on strength, 2nd Bn, Gallipoli, 6 August 1915.

Admitted to 1st Field Ambulance, and transferred to 3rd Australian General Hospital, Lemnos, 29 September 1915 (defective teeth); disembarked Alexandria, 28 December 1915. Transferred to 54th Bn, 14 February 1916..

Admitted to No. 2 Casualty Clearing Station, 30 April 1916; discharged to duty, 8 May 1916; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 9 days.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 19 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 29 June 1916.

Promoted Corporal, 25 July 1916.

Admitted to 14th Australian Field Ambulance, 28 December 1916; transferred to 51st General Hospital, Etaples, 2 January 1917; dischaged to Base Depot, 25 January 1917; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 27 days. Rejoined unit, 6 February 1917.

Promoted Sergeant, 20 January 1917. Mentioned in Despatches, 9 April 1917.

Killed in action, 24 September 1917. Buried at a point south of Westhoek and east of Ypres; grave lost in subsequent fighting.

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

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