The AIF Project

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.

Military Medal

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Embarked from Australia, 29 June 1915. Disembarked Alexandria, Egypt, ex Mudros, 9 January 1916 (general Gallipoli evacuation). Admitted to 7th Field Ambulance, 14 February 1916; transferred to No. 1 Australian Stationary Hospital, Ismailia, 28 February 1916; to 1st Dermalogical Hospital, Abbassia, 29 February 1916;to Overseas Base, 14 February 1916; discharged, 31 March 1916. Total period of treatment for venereal disease: 47 days.

Proceeded form Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 21 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 30 June 1916. Taken on strength, 57th Bn, 22 July 1916; transferred to 25th Bn, 24 November 1916. Found guilty of being absent without leave from 2 pm, 15 March, until apprehended by M.P. at 8.15 pm, 16 March 1917: forfeited 7 days' pay. On leave to England, 7 July 1917; rejoined from leave, 19 July 1917.

Wounded in action, Belgium, 7 October 1917 (shell wound, neck); admitted to 14th General Hospital, 8 October 1917; transferred to England, 10 October 1917, and admitted to Eastbourne Military Hospital. Transferred to 3rd Auxiliary Hospital, Dartford, 29 October 1917; discharged to Depot, Weymouth, 31 October 1917.

Awarded the Military Medal.

Found guilty of being absent without leave, 14 December to 4.45 pm, 17 December 1917: awarded 6 days' Field Punishment No. 2 and forfeited 9 days' pay. Proceeded overseas to France, 27 December 1917; rejoined 25th Bn, Belgium, 4 January 1918.

Reported missing in action, 12 January 1918; fate confirmed as killed in action, 12 January 1918.