Regimental number | 4838 |
Place of birth | Wooragee, Victoria |
Place of birth | Beechworth, Victoria |
School | Wooragee State School, Victoria |
Religion | Roman Catholic |
Occupation | Postal assistant |
Address | Glen Innes, New South Wales |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 20 |
Next of kin | Father, P Shanahan, Noorongong via Tallangatta, Victoria |
Enlistment date | |
Place of enlistment | HMAT A40 |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 17th Battalion, 12th Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/34/2 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A40 Ceramic on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Sergeant |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 53rd Battalion |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Place of death or wounding | Polygon Wood, Belgium |
Age at death | 22.10 |
Age at death from cemetery records | 22 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 29), 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 | 158 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Parents: Philip and Margaret SHANAHAN, Noorongong, Victoria. Native of Wooragee, Victoria |
Family/military connections | Cousins: 2790 Pte Anthony SHANAHAN, 18th Bn, killed in action, 1 July 1916; |
Other details |
War service: Egypt, Western Front Embarked Alexandria, 28 May 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 7 June 1916. Proceeded overseas to France, 10 September 1916; taken on strength, 53rd Bn, 9 October 1916. Reverted to Private from Acting Corporal (appointed with pay, 27 September 1916) on joining Bn, 9 October 1916. Promoted Corporal, 20 October 1916; appointed Lance Sergeant, 20 October 1916. Detached to 5th Divisional Infantry School, 26 December 1916. Promoted Sergeant, 23 December 1916. Rejoined Bn from Divisional Infantry School, 18 January 1917. Detached to Physical Training and Bayonet Fighting School, 15 July 1917. On leave to England, 28 August 1917; rejoined unit from leave, 11 September 1917. Killed in action, 26 September 1917. Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal |