The AIF Project

Harold BREWER

Regimental number2330
Place of birthGrafton, New South Wales
Other trainingBlackfriars Teachers Training College; University of Sydney, New South Wales
ReligionMethodist
OccupationPublic school teacher
AddressBoxhill via Lismore, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation31
Next of kinFather, William Thomas Brewer, Boxhill, via Lismore, New South Wales
Previous military serviceServed in the Senior Cadets.
Enlistment date14 May 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name1st Battalion, 7th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/18/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A67 Orsova on 14 July 1915
Rank from Nominal RollWarrant Officer (Class II)
Unit from Nominal Roll53rd Battalion
Other details from Roll of Honour Circular

Father: 'I have written twice for this information [where killed] and for where he was buried but they had no information to give, but promised to send it on later when they got it, but no further news has come.' He served on Gallipoli until the evacuation, then went to the Western, rising to the rank of Company Sergeant Major. He was shot in the scrotum in France; and was sent to a hospital in the south of England, where he topped his class in an examination for commissioning. He was killed following a successful attack he led on a German pill-box. During the attack he was shot through the chest; on walking back with 3 other wounded, he stopped to assist a wounded man who could not move. A shell killed all four.

FateKilled in Action 26 September 1917
Age at death33
Age at death from cemetery records33
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
156
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Thomas and Phoebe BREWER, Brunswich Heads, New South Wales. Native of Carr's Creek, New South Wales
Family/military connectionsCousins: 2281A Pte Clive BREWER, 53rd Bn, killed in action, 24 September 1917; Lt Robert BREWER, 41st Bn, killed in action, 26 September 1917; Anthony HAVILACK; 3765 Pte John Edmund BUTTSWORTH, 30th Bn, killed in action, 8 April 1918; 6681 Pte Wesley BUTTSWORTH, 17th Bn, killed in action, 9 October 1917.~
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Embarked for Gallipoli from Alexandria, 18 October 1915; joined 31st Bn at Gallipoli, 4 November 1915. Disembarked Alexandria, 28 December 1915 (general Gallipoli evacuation).

Transferred to 53rd Bn, Tel el Kebir, 13 February 1916. Promoted Temporary Sergeant, 16 March 1916; Acting Company Sergeant Major, 23 March 1916; Company Sergeant Major (Warrant Officer Class II), 29 May 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 19 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 28 June 1916.

Wounded in action, 19 July 1916 (gun shot wound, finger and testicle); admitted to Anglo-American Hospital (14th General Hospital), Wimereux, 21 July 1916. Transferred to England, 31 July 1916 (wound, scrotum: severe), and admitted to 1/4th Northern General Hospital, 1 August 1916 (wound:slight). transferred to 2nd Auxiliary Hospital, Southall, 20 September 1916; discharged to No. 2 Command Depot, Weymouth, 31 October 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 25 June 1917; rejoined Bn, 1 July 1917.

Killed in action, 26 September 1917.

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

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