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.

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Joined 9th Bn at Gallipoli, 4 May 1915. To hospital, 30 August 1915 (no details recorded); rejoined unit, 2 September 1915. Disembarked Alexandria ex Mudros, 4 January 1916 (general Gallipoli evacuation). Admitted to 3rd Australian General Hospital, 7 January 1916 (dental); discharged to Overseas Base, Ghezireh, 9 January 1916. Admitted to 4th Australian Hospital, 17 February 1916 (bronchitis); transferred to Base, 4 March 1916. marched into 3rd Training Bn, Tel el Kebir, 8 May 1916.

Embarked from Alexandria, 6 June 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 16 June 1916. Found guilty, 4 July 1916, of being absent without leave, 1 am, 27 June, to 10 pm, 3 July 1916: awarded 7 days' detention, and forfeited 14 days' pay. Found guilty, 23 August 1916, of overstaying leave from Reveille, 22 August, to 23 August: awarded 2 days' detention and forfeited 3 days' pay.

Proceeded overseas to France, 2 July 1917; taken on strength, 49th Bn, 19 July 1916. Admitted to 13th Australian Field Ambulance, 19 September 1917 (bronchitis) and transferred to 39th Stationary Hospital; discharged to duty, 6 October 1917.

Wounded in action, 12 October 1917; subsequently reported as missing in action; confirmed as killed in action.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal