The AIF Project

Albert James RICHARDSON

Regimental number361
Place of birthVirginia, South Australia
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationCabinetmaker
Address67 Hurtle square, Adelaide, South Australia
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation19
Next of kinFather, James Richardson, Pensey Vale, Lyndoch, South Australia
Previous military serviceServed for 3 years in the 78th Infantry Regiment, Citizen Military Forces; still serving at time of AIF enlistment.
Enlistment date14 January 1916
Rank on enlistmentCorporal
Unit name43rd Battalion, B Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/60/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board HMAT A19 Afric on 9 June 1916
Rank from Nominal RollCorporal
Unit from Nominal Roll43rd Battalion
FateKilled in Action 4 October 1917
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
137
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked from Adelaide, 9 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 20 July 1916.

Proceeded to England, 1st Australian Dermatological Hospital, Bulford, 4 September 1916. Discharged to duty, 8 November 1916; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 66 days. Pay forfeited from 4 September 1916. until discharge from hospital.

Proceeded overseas to France, 20 December 1916; rejoined 43rd Bn in the field, 26 January 1917.

Wounded in action, 31 July 1917 (gun shot wound, right arm, and burns). Admitted to 11th General Hospital, Camiers, 3 August 1917; transferred to 6th Convalescent Depot, Etaples, 6 August 1917; rejoined Bn, 8 September 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 4 October 1917. Buried at Zonnebeke; Chaplain W.A, Moore officiating.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

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