John Joseph SCOTT

Regimental number667
Place of birthDublin, Ireland
SchoolSt Joseph's (Catholic) School and Grammar School, Victoria
Age on arrival in Australia5
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationGrocer
Address652 Bridge Road, Richmond, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation30
Height5' 4.5"
Weight114 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs M Scott, 652 Bridge Road, Richmond, Victoria
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date6 March 1916
Place of enlistmentMelbourne, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name38th Battalion, B Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/55/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A54 Runic on 20 June 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll38th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 13 October 1917
Place of death or woundingPolygon Wood, Ypres, Belgium
Age at death31
Age at death from cemetery records31
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 25), 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
130
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: James and Maria SCOTT, 50 Ramsden Street, Clifton Hill, Victoria. Native of Ball's Bridge, Dublin, Ireland
Family/military connectionsBrother: 1451 Corporal Joseph Patrick SCOTT, 13th Field Artillery Brigade, killed in action, 21 August 1917.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Melbourne, 20 June 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 10 August 1916. Proceeded overseas to France, 22 November 1916.

Admitted to 11th Australian Field Ambulance, 11 May 1917 (scabies); transferred to 3rd Divisional Rest Station, 12 May 1917; rejoined unit, 24 May 1917.

Missing in action, 13 October 1917; Court of Enquiry, 28 April 1918, confirmed fate as killed in action, Belgium, 20 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, SCOTT John Joseph