Charles Calliope WILEY

Regimental number67
Place of birthRockhampton, Queensland
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationStation overseer
AddressMt Morgan, Queensland
Marital statusWidower
Age at embarkation28
Height5' 6.75"
Weight161 lbs
Next of kinSon, Bryce Wiley, Mt Morgan, Queensland
Enlistment date8 February 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name11th Light Horse Regiment, Machine Gun Section
AWM Embarkation Roll number10/16/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board HMAT A7 Medic on 2 June 1915
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board HMAT A30 Borda on 16 June 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll49th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 7 June 1917
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
149
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Transferred to 2nd Light Horse Regiment, Gallipoli, 29 August 1915. Admitted to hospital, Gallipoli, 3 November 1915; returned to duty, 14 November 1915 (no details recorded). Admitted to 15th General Hospital, Alexandria, 8 December 1915 (dysentery); transferred to HMT 'Tagus' for transfer to England, 14 December 1915. Discharged from Abbeywood, Montevideo, Weymouth, England, 27 May 1916; marched in to Light Horse Details, Weymouth, 24 August 1916; to 13th Training Bn, Codford, 18 December 1916. Proceeded overseas to France, 16 January 1917; taken on strength, 49th Bn, 21 January 1917.

Found guilty, 12 January 1917, of being absent without leave from 1 am to 10.30 pm, 12 January 1917: admonished and forfeited 1 day's pay.

Killed in action, Belgium, 7 June 1917.

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