The AIF Project

Joseph Edward BRUNTON

Regimental number6956
Place of birthParramatta, New South Wales
SchoolSeven Hills and Parramatta South Superior Public Schools, New South Wales
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationOrchardist
AddressSeven Hills, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation25
Height5' 4.5"
Weight134 lbs
Next of kinFather, J Brunton, Seven Hills, New South Wales
Previous military serviceServed in the Citizen Military Forces.
Enlistment date1 November 1916
Place of enlistmentSydney, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name2nd Battalion, 23rd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/19/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A24 Benalla on 9 November 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll2nd Battalion
FateKilled in Action 4 October 1917
Place of death or woundingPasschendaele, Ypres, Belgium
Age at death26.4
Age at death from cemetery records26
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
31
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Joseph and Mary BRUNTON, 'Ravenswood', Seven Hills, New South Wales
Family/military connectionsBrothers: 3265 Pte Peter BRUNTON, 7th Light Horse Regiment, returned to Australia, 28 June 1919; 1881 Pte William BRUNTON, 53rd Bn, returned to Australia, 10 January 1918.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 9 November 1916; disembarked Devonport, England, 9 January 1917; marched into 1st Training Bn, Larkhill.

Found guilty, 25 January 1917, of being absent without leave from midnight, 22 January, to 8am, 22 January 1917: awarded 2 days' Field Punishment No 2, and forfeiture of a total of 4 days' pay.

Proceeded overseas to France, 3 May 1917; taken on strength, 2nd Bn, in the field, 10 May 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 4 October 1917.

Burial report by 1st Anzac Corps Burial Officer, 5 October 1917.

Grave subsequently lost.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, BRUNTON Joseph Edward

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