William Pope ALLDIS

Regimental number10972
Place of birthAlbert Park, Victoria
SchoolGeelong Rd State School, Footscray, Victoria
Other trainingWorking Mens College
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationGas fitter
Address96 Gammon Street, Yarraville, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation24
Height5' 9"
Weight136 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs Dora Mary Alldis, 96 Gammon Street, Yarraville, Victoria
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date11 April 1916
Place of enlistmentMelbourne, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentSapper
Unit name10th Field Company Engineers, Reinforcement 1
AWM Embarkation Roll number14/29/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A54 Runic on 20 June 1916
Rank from Nominal RollSapper
Unit from Nominal Roll10th Field Company Engineers
FateKilled in Action 8 June 1917
Place of death or woundingMessines, Belgium
Age at death26
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 7), 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
23
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Walter Charles and Dora Mary ALLDIS
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Melbourne, 20 June 1916; disembarked, Plymouth, England, 10 August 1916.

Embarked England to join British Expeditionary Force, France, 23 November 1916.

Reported wounded in action, Belgium, 8 June 1917; subsequently reported missing.

Court of inquiry held in the field, 29 November 1917, unable to determine soldier's fate.

Court of inquiry held in the field, 18 June 1918, pronounced fate, 'Killed in action, in the field, 8 June 1917'.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, ALLDIS William Pope