The AIF Project

Alexander ROBINSON

Regimental number2793
Place of birthBallyclare, Co Antrim, Ireland
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationLabourer
AddressClifton, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation34
Height5' 9.25"
Weight147 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs Mary Ann Robinson, Ballyclare Co Antrim, Ireland
Previous military serviceServed for 12 years, 3rd Dragoon Guards, British Army.
Enlistment date21 June 1916
Place of enlistmentToowoomba, Queensland
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name47th Battalion, 6th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/64/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board HMAT A74 Marathon on 27 October 1916
Regimental number from Nominal Roll2793A
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll47th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Age at death from cemetery records37
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
144
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Brisbane on 'Marathon', 27 October 1916; disembarked Plymouth, 9 January 1917. Marched into 12th Training Bn, Codford, 10 January 1917.

Found guilty, 3 April 1917, of being absent without leave from Tattoo Roll Call, 25 March, to 2.45 pm, 27 March 1917: awarded 7 days' Field Punshment No 2; forfeited total of 10 days' pay. Proceeded to France, Folkestone, 3 May 1917. Marched into No 4 Australian Division Base Depot, Etaples, 4 May 1917; marched out, 7 May 1917, and taken on strength, 47th Bn, 8 May 1917.

Admitted to 53rd Casualty Clearing Station, 27 May 1917 (incised wound, left knee); transferred and admitted to 5th British Red Cross Hospital, 29 May 1917; transferred to No 1 Convalescent Depot, Boulogne, 4 June 1917. Australian Imperial Force Form A.F.B117 states, 'Suffering from an Incised wound (knee.) The disability is trivial and in all probability will not interfere with his future efficiency as a soldier. The soldier states that the injury did not occur while he was in the performance of Military Duty'. Discharged to base, 5 June 1917. Marched into No 4 Australian Division Base Depot, Havre, 8 June 1917.

Admitted to 2nd Casualty Clearing Station, 10 June 1917; transferred to 2nd Army Special Hospital, Belgium, 14 June 1917; discharged, 22 June 1917; rejoined unit, 1 July 1917.

Field General Court Marshal held 'In the Field', 2 July 1917. Charge 1: A.A.SECT:40.(1). - 'Neglect to the predjudice of good order and Military Discipline, in that he (A Robinson) caused himself a self-inflicted wound in the field, 25 May 1917. Charge 2: A.A.SECT:19 - Drunkenness, 25 May 1917. Finding: Not Guilty, 1st Charge; Guilty, 2nd Charge: awarded 7 days' Field Punishment No 2; forfeited total of 45 days' pay.

Found guilty, 8 September 1917, of drunkenness and absent without leave from 9.00 am, 7 September, to 9.45 pm, 7 September 1917: awarded 10 days' Field Punishment No 2; forfeited total of 11 days' pay.

Killed in Action, Belgium, 12 October 1917. Buried 1000 yards South-West of Passchendaele.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, ROBINSON Alexander

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