George BROWN

Regimental number1725
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationEngine driver
AddressHawthorne Street, Roma, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation18
Next of kinW H Brown c/o Mrs S A Hunter, Hawthorne Street, Roma, Queensland
Enlistment date22 January 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name9th Battalion, 4th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/26/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board HMAT A15 Star Of England on 8 April 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
147
Family/military connectionsBrother: 6364 Pte William Henry BROWN, 9th Bn, killed in action, 5 January 1917.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Admitted to 2nd Australian Stationary Hospital, Lemnos, 14 June 1915. Joined 9th Bn at Gallipoli, 23 June 1915. To hospital, 21 August 1915 (diarrhoea); admitted to No. 1 Australian Stationary Hospital, Lemnos, 27 August 1915. Transferred to Base, Mudros, 31 August 1915.Embarked on HS 'Rewaz' for England, 1 September 1915; admitted to County of London War Hospital, Epsom, 11 September 1915. Disembarked Alexandria from England and rejoined unit, Tel el Kebir, 15 January 1916. Transferred to 49th Bn, 25 February 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 5 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 12 June 1916. On leave to England, 30 December 1916; rejoined unit, 20 February 1917. Appointed Lance Corporal, 21 February 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 7 June 1917.

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