The AIF Project

Frank SHAW

Regimental number52
Place of birthNorth Fitzroy, Victoria
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationMilitary staff clerk
Address33 Osborne Avenue, East Malvern, Melbourne, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation20
Height5' 10.75"
Weight154 lbs
Next of kinFather, G Shaw, 33 Osborne Avenue, East Malvern, Melbourne, Victoria
Previous military serviceCorps of Military Staff Clerks; Served for 9 months in the Senior Cadets.
Enlistment date28 August 1914
Rank on enlistmentStaff Sergeant
Unit nameHead Quarters 1st Australian Division
AWM Embarkation Roll number1/42/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A3 Orvieto on 21 October 1914
Date of embarkation incorrectly entered on Embarkation Roll as 22 October 1914.
Regimental number from Nominal RollComissioned
Rank from Nominal RollLieutenant
Unit from Nominal Roll59th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Date of death12 October 1917
Age at death from cemetery records23
Commemoration detailsThe 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
168
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: George and Maria SHAW. Native of Victoria
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 5 April 1915. Transferred from Divisional Headquarters to ANZAC Headquarters, 19 July 1915. Admitted to 1st Casualty Clearing Station, 31 August 1915 (dysentery), and transferred to Mudros. Admitted to No. 1 General Hospital, Heliopolis, Egypt, 2 September 1915; readmitted, 5 September 1915 (dysentery and eyes), and transferred to No. 1 Auxiliary Hospital; to No. 4 Auxiliary Hospital, Abbassia, 11 September 1915. Transferred to AIF Headquarters, 13 October 1915. Appointed Warrant Office, 1 November 1915. Admitted to No. 1 Australian General Hospital, 1 March 1916 (abcess on thigh); discharged to unit, 17 March 1916.

Embarked for overseas, 11 May 1916. On command for instruction, Pembroke College, Cambridge, 5 November 1916. Appointed 2nd Lieutenant, and posted to Infantry Reinforcements, 30 March 1917. Proceeded overseas to France, 26 April 1917; taken on strength, 59th Bn, 30 April 1917.

Admitted to 3rd Australian Casualty Clearing Station, 4 June 1917 (trench fever); transferred to Warloy Officers' Hospital, 7 June 1917; discharged to duty, 13 June 1917; rejoined Bn, 14 June 1917.

Promoted Lt, 27August 1917. To England on leave, 17 September 1917; rejoined Bn, 29 September 1917.

Killed in action, 12 October 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal
Miscellaneous detailsAge at enlistment originally recorded as 17.9.

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