The AIF Project

Hubert George RICE

Regimental number1710
Place of birthCarlton, Victoria
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationPacker
AddressMoonee Ponds, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation33
Next of kinMother, Mrs Sarah Rice, 635 Mt Alexander Road, Moonee Ponds, Victoria
Previous military serviceServed for 1 year in the Citizen Military Forces.
Enlistment date21 March 1916
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name39th Battalion, 1st Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/56/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A11 Ascanius on 27 May 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll7th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 5 October 1917
Age at death from cemetery records34
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
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

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