The AIF Project

Joseph BRIDDICK

Regimental number555
Place of birthNewcastle, New South Wales
SchoolFremantle Boys' High School, Western Australia
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationMiner
Address38 Phillip Street, Balmain, Sydney, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation21
Next of kinMother, Mrs Adams, Adamstown, Newcastle, New South Wales
Previous military serviceServed in the Senior Cadets (before the Compulsory Military Training scheme was introduced).
Enlistment date25 August 1914
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name4th Battalion, F Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/21/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board Transport A14 Euripides on 20 October 1914
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll4th Battalion
Other details from Roll of Honour CircularFather died 6 July 1902.
FateKilled in Action 4 October 1917
Place of death or woundingBroodseinde Ridge, Passchendaele, Belgium
Date of death4 October 1917
Age at death23.8
Age at death from cemetery records23
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 7), 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
39
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Joseph and Eva BRIDDICK, 2 Wisbeach Street, Rozelle, New South Wales. Native of Newcastle, New South Wales
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Embarked from Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 5 April 1915. Wounded in action, 9 August 1915; disembarked Malta, 12 August 1915 (twisted knee). Embarked for England, 17 August 1915, and admitted to London Hospital, 9 September 1915. Found guilty of overstaying leave from midnight, 21 May, to 6.30 am, 23 May 1916: awarded 3 days' confined to barracks and forfeiture of 2 days' pay.

Left with draft for France, 28 May 1916. Admitted to 26th General Hospital, Etaples, 31 May 1916 (skin disease); discharged to Base Depot, 5 July 1916. Rejoined Bn, 19 July 1916.

Wounded in action, 23 July 1916 (shell shock); admitted to 8th General Hospital, Rouen, 26 July 1916; transferred to England, 26 July 1916, and admitted to Beaufort War Hospital, Bristol, 27 July 1916. Taken on strength, No. 1 Command Depot, 14 October 1916. Granted furlough, 30 October 1916; marched in to No. 1 Command Depot from furlough, 14 November 1916. Marched in to No. 4 Command Depot, Wareham, 20 November 1916. Found guilty of being absent without leave, 9.30 pm, 22 December, to 9.30 pm, 28 December 1916: awarded 168 hours' detention and forfeiture of 14 days' pay. Found guilty, Fovant, of being in Gillingham without a pass: awarded 1 day's Field Punishment No. 2.

Proceeded overseas to France, 12 September 1917; taken on strength, 4th Bn, 25 September 1917.

Killed in action, 4 October 1917.

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

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