The AIF Project

James Ernest TURNER

Regimental number1244
Place of birthKampton, Tasmania
Place of birthColbrook, Tasmania
SchoolJericho State School, Tasmania
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationLabourer
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation25
Next of kinThomas Turner, Foster Street, Newtown, Hobart, Tasmania
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date9 October 1914
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name12th Battalion, 1st Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/29/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A32 Themistocles on 22 December 1914
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll12th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 3 November 1917
Place of death or woundingZonnebeke, Belgium
Age at death28
Age at death from cemetery records28
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 17), 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
67
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Thomas and Hannah TURNER, 66 Forster Street, Newtown, Tasmania. Native of Kempton, Tasmania
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Embarked from Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 2 March 1915. Wounded in action, 25-28 April 1915 (bullet wound, shoulder); admitted to A&NZ Convalescent Depot, Helouan, Egypt, 15 June 1915; rejoined unit at Gallipoli, 27 July 1915. Admitted to No. 1 Field Ambulance, 24 August 1915 (influence); transferred to Mudros, 25 August 1915; to St David's Hospital, Malta, 31 August 1915. Embarked for England, 23 October 1915, and admitted to 3rd Western General Hospital, 30 October 1915. Embarked from Weymouth to rejoin unit in France, 7 June 1916; rejoined unit, 4 August 1916.

Wounded in action, 19-22 August 1916 (gun shot wound, hip); admitted to 26th General Hospital, Etaples, 23 August 1916; transferred to 6th Convalescent Depot, 25 August 1916. Transferred to 1st Pioneer Bn, 14 September 1916; to 12th Bn, 17 November 1916.

Wounded in action, 6-10 April 1917 (shrapnel wound, ankle); admitted to 10th General Hospital, Rouen, 9 April 1917; rejoined Bn, 23 May 1917. On leave, 15 September 1917; rejoined Bn, 28 September 1917.

Killed in action, 3 November 1917.

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

Print format    


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