Regimental number | 2508 |
Place of birth | Toowoomba, Queensland |
School | Educated in England |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Postal assistant |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 21 |
Height | 5' 5" |
Weight | 119 lbs |
Next of kin | Father, G A Sale, Levuka, Fiji |
Previous military service | Nil ('evaded service') |
Enlistment date | |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 12th Battalion, 7th Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/29/2 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board HMAT A61 Kanowna on |
Other details from Roll of Honour Circular | After being badly wounded on the Somme, he would not have his discharge and wrote to his father - 'I will stick to it as long as one of my Avoca chums is alive'. |
Miscellaneous details (Nominal Roll) | Name does not appear on Nominal Roll |
Place of death or wounding | Polygon Wood, Ypres, Belgium |
Age at death | 23 |
Age at death from cemetery records | 23 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 17), 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 | 67 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Parents: Rev. George SALE, M.A., and Mrs Mabel SALE, The Vicarage, Levuka, Fiji. Native of Brisbane |
Other details |
War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front Proceeded from Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 4 November 1915. Taken on strength, 12th Bn, Mudros, 27 November 1915. Disembarked Alexandria, 6 January 1916 (general Gallipoli evacuation). Admitted to 4th Australian Hospital, Abbassia, 21 January 1916 (mumps); discharged to Base, 9 February 1916; rejoined 12th Bn, Serapeum, 11 March 1916. Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 29 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 3 April 1916. Admitted to 3rd Field Ambulance, 13 February 1917 (phileleitis, both thighs); transferred to 22nd General Hospital, Camiers,14 February 1917; discharged to Base Details, 6 March 1917; rejoined unit, 18 March 1917. Wounded in action, 25 April 1917 (gun shot wound, left thigh); admitted to No. 3 Stationary Hospital, Rouen, 29 April 1917; transferred to No. 2 Convalescent Depot, 30 April 1917; rejoined unit, 19 August 1917. Killed in action, Belgium, 20 September 1917. Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal |