The AIF Project

Charles WIGHTMAN

Regimental number2022
Place of birthYarraweyah, Victoria
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationTailor
AddressNumurkah, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation21
Height5' 5.75"
Weight142 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs N Wightman, Cobram, Victoria
Previous military serviceServed in the 58th Infantry, Citizen Military Forces, for 2 years; still serving at time of AIF enlistment.
Enlistment date21 June 1915
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll17 June 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name24th Battalion, 3rd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/41/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A68 Anchises on 26 August 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll24th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 December 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
103
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Charles and Margaret WIGHTMAN
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Taken on strength, 24th Bn, Gallipoli, 12 October 1915. Admitted to 6th Field Ambulance, 10 November 1915 (tonsillitis); rejoined Bn, 18 November 1915. Disembarked Alexandria ex Mudros, 10 January 1916 (general Gallipoli evacuation).

Admitted to 4th Auxiliary Hospital, Abbassia, 28 January 1916 (mumps); discharged to duty, 12 February 1916; rejoined Bn, 8 March 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 20 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 26 March 1916.

Admitted to 5th Australian Field Ambulance, 21 December 1916 (bronchitis), and transferred to Anzac Corps Rest Station; to 36th Casualty Clearing Station, 24 January 1917; to 12th General Hospital, Rouen, 26 January 1917; to England, 9 February 1917, and admitted to 3rd Southern General Hospital, Oxford, 10 February 1917 (bronchitis and debility). Discharged on furlough, 23 March 1917, to report to No. 1 Command Depot, Perham Downs, 3 April 1917. Found guilty, 18 July 1917, of being absent without leave from noon, 5 July, to 9 pm, 12 July 1917: awarded 21 days' Field Punishment No. 2. Proceeded overseas to France, 26 July 1917; rejoined Bn, 14 August 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 8 October 1917.

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

Print format    


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