The AIF Project

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.

Enlisted at Melbourne, 6 April 1915; discharged at Broadmeadows, 17 April 1915, on account of being under age. Mother stated that he had signed his father's signature himself. Enlisted 16 July 1915.

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Taken on strength, 22nd Bn, Tel el Kebir, 8 January 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 19 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 26 March 1916. Pay account debited 1.10 francs for loss of towel., 6 May 1916.

Wounded in action, 5 August 1916 (gun shot wound, right hand); admitted to 8th General Hospital, Rouen, 6 August 1916. Transferred to England, 9 August 1916, and admitted to Beaufort War Hospital, Fishponds, Bristol, 10 August 1916. Discharged from hospital, 5 September 1916; taken on strength, No. 1 Command Depot, Perham Downs, 23 September 1916; transferred to 6th Training Bn, 23 October 1916. District Court Martial held at Larkhill, 12 February 1917: charged with (1) Being absent without leave, 21 December 1916-11 January 1917 (22 days); (2) Being in possession of a false pass; (3) Being in possession of false Railway Warrants; (4) Making wilfully false answers to a question. Found guilty on charges (1) and (2); not guilty on charges (3) and (4). Sentenced to 120 days' detention. BGen Sir Newton J. Moore, GOC AIF Depots in the UK, confirmed the sentence but remitted 50 days' detention. Total forfeiture of pay: 123 days.

Found guilty, 20 September 1916, of being in London in possession of a falsified pass: awarded 168 hours' detention.

Found guilty, 8 December 1916, of being absent without leave, 0800 28 November -2300 1 December 1916; and of neglecting to obey standing orders, viz. being out of bounds without a pass: awarded forfeiture of 4 days' pay: total forfeiture of pay: 8 days. Found guilty by District Court Martial, Larkhill, 22 March 1917, of 'at Larkhill at 7.15 pm on the 18.2.17 when in confinement in the 6th Tng Bn Guard Detention Room [he] escaped and remained absent without leave until apprehended by the Military Police at Andover at 9 pm on the 26.2.17.' Sentenced to 7 months' detention and total forfeiture of 240 days' pay; remaining 70 days of sentence remitted as from 6 August 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 6 August 1917. Rejoined Bn, 18 August 1917. Found guilty of being absent from 3.30 am parade, 4 September 1917: awarded forfeiture of 4 days' pay.

Killed in action, Belgium, 3 October 1917.