The AIF Project

Johan ALLEMAN

Regimental number2371
Place of birthKibsti, South Africa
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationFarm hand
AddressPerth, Western Australia
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation26
Height5' 3"
Weight110 lbs
Next of kinFather, Mr Marinus Alleman, Middleberth, Holland
Previous military serviceServed for 4 years in the Dutch Navy
Enlistment date24 February 1916
Place of enlistmentPerth, Western Australia
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name51st Battalion, 5th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/68/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT A66 Uganda on 20 September 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll51st Battalion
FateKilled in Action 26 September 1917
Place of death or woundingYpres, Belgium
Age at death28
Place of burialNo known grave
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
152
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Fremantle, 20 September 1916; disembarked Plymouth, 15 November 1916.

Embarked Folkestone to join the British Expeditionary Force, France, 12 December 1916; marched in, 4th Australian Divisional Base Depot, France, 16 December 1916.

Taken on strength, 51st Bn, 19 December 1916.

Admitted to hospital (measles), France, 12 January 1917; discharged to duty, 24 January 1917; rejoined 51st Bn, in the field, 27 January 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 26 September 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, ALLEMAN Johan

Print format    


© The AIF Project 2024, UNSW Canberra. Not to be reproduced without permission.