Albert BURROWS

Regimental number2933
Place of birthRichmond, Victoria
SchoolBrighton Street State School No 2396, Richmond, Victoria
ReligionMethodist
OccupationPacker
Address76 Green Street, South Richmond, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation18
Height5' 7.75"
Weight140 lbs
Next of kinFather, Mr George F. Burrows, 76 Green Street, South Richmond, Victoria
Previous military serviceServed as a Sergeant in the 56th Regiment, Richmond, Victoria (Compulsory Military Training scheme).
Enlistment date10 July 1916
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll12 June 1916
Place of enlistmentMelbourne, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name4th Light Horse Regiment, 21st Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number10/9/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A1 Hymettus on 12 September 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll4th Light Horse Regiment
FateKilled in Action 1 May 1918
Place of death or woundingJordan Valley, Palestine
Age at death20.11
Age at death from cemetery records20
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
4
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: George and Mary Catherine BURROWS, 76 Green Street, Richmond, Victoria
Other details

War service: Egypt, Palestine

Disembarked Suez, 17 October 1916; marched into Isolation Camp, Moascar, Egypt, 18 October 1916; taken on strength, 1st Light Horse Training Regiment, Moascar, 30 October 1916.

Taken on strength, Australian Camel Training Unit, Abbassia, 30 December 1916.

Taken on strength, 4th Light Horse Regiment, Ferry Post, 25 February 1917.

Detached to Hotchkiss School of Instruction, Marakeb, 15 May 1917; rejoined unit, Tel-el-Fara, 28 May 1917.

Admitted to 3rd Light Horse Field Ambulance, 3 June 1917 (venereal disease); transferred to 54th Casualty Clearing Station, 3 June 1917; to Hospital Train, 4 June 1917; to 14th Australian General Hospital, Abbassia, 7 June 1917; discharged to 4th Light Horse Training Regiment, 12 July 1917; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 40 days.

Taken on strength, 4th Light Horse Regiment, 23 July 1917.

[no details of service between 25 July 1917 and 1 May 1918].

Wounded and missing, 1 May 1918; believed to be Prisoner of War; Court of Inquiry held on 2 December 1918 determined fate as killed in action, 1 May 1918.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, BURROWS Albert