The AIF Project

Henry Robert WEPPLER

Regimental number1924
Date of birth10 July 1881
Place of birthBega, New South Wales
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationLabourer
Address325 Glebe Road, Glebe, Sydney, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation34
Height5' 8"
Weight149 lbs
Next of kinSister, Mrs Burdon, 325 Glebe Road, Glebe, Sydney, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date16 June 1915
Place of enlistmentBrisbane, Queensland
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name26th Battalion, 3rd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/43/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board HMAT A55 Kyarra on 16 August 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll26th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 4 October 1917
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 23), 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
109
Family/military connectionsBrothers: 2412 Pte Alfred George WEPPLER, Australian Flying Corps, returned to Australia, 29 April 1919; 384 Pte Bertie Hamilton WEPPLER, 1st Light Horse Regiment, returned to Australia, 13 March 1919; 385 Driver Edward WEPPLER, 1st Light Horse Regiment, returned to Australia, 16 January 1919.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Taken on strength, 26th Bn, Gallipoli, 9 December 1915. Disembarked Alexandria from Mudros, 9 January 1916 (general Gallipoli evacuation).

Embarked Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 15 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, France, 21 March 1916.

On leave to England, 2 August 1917; rejoined unit from leave, 15 August 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 4 October 1917.

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

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