Regimental number | 1710 |
Place of birth | Carlton, Victoria |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Packer |
Address | Moonee Ponds, Victoria |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 33 |
Next of kin | Mother, Mrs Sarah Rice, 635 Mt Alexander Road, Moonee Ponds, Victoria |
Previous military service | Served for 1 year in the Citizen Military Forces. |
Enlistment date | |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 39th Battalion, 1st Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/56/2 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A11 Ascanius on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 7th Battalion |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Age at death from cemetery records | 34 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The 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 | 51 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Son of Robert RICE, 637 Mount Alexander Road, Moonee Ponds, Victoria |
Other details |
War service: Western Front Embarked from Melbourne, 27 May 1916; disembarked Devonport, England, 18 July 1916. Proceeded overseas to France, 9 September 1916; taken on strength, 7th Bn, Belgium, 23 September 1916. Admitted to 2nd Field Ambulance, 27 November 1916 (influenza); transferred to NZ Stationary Hospital, Amiens, 28 November 1916; to 1st Canadian General Hospital, Boulogne, 30 November 1916; to 7th Convalescent Depot, 12 December 1916; rejoined unit, 29 December 1916. To hospital, 26 February 1917 (feet); rejoined Bn, 5 March 1917. To hospital, 11 April 1917 (heel); rejoined unit, 10 May 1917. To hospital, 23 May 1917 (shingles); rejoined unit, 8 June 1917. Killed in action, Belgium, 5 October 1917. Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal |