The AIF Project

Patrick Joseph BYRNE

Regimental number32129
Place of birthKildare, Ireland
Age on arrival in Australia26
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationSalesman
Address21 Stewart Street, Paddington, Sydney, New South Wales
Marital statusMarried
Age at embarkation43
Height5' 7.5"
Weight158 lbs
Next of kinWife, Mrs M M Byrne, 'Eblana', 22C Womerah Avenue, Darlinghurst, Sydney, New South Wales
Previous military serviceServed for 7 years, Royal Garrison Artillery (completed service); served in the Royal Artillery, British Army, in Aden and in Rangoon (Burma).
Enlistment date30 September 1916
Place of enlistmentSydney, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentGunner
Unit nameDivisional Ammunition Column 5, Reinforcement 10
AWM Embarkation Roll number25/112/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board RMS Osterley on 10 February 1917
FateKilled in Action 13 October 1917
Place of death or woundingFrance
Age at death44
Age at death from cemetery records44
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 17), 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
17
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Patrick and Mary BYRNE; husband of Margaret BYRNE, 211 Barcom Avenue, Darlinghurst, New South Wales. Native of Dublin, Ireland
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 10 February 1917; disembarked Plymouth, England, and marched in to Larkhill, 11 April 1917; reverted to rank of Gunner, 12 April 1917; marched in to RBAA Details, Boyton, 9 July 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 15 August 1917; marched in to Australian General Base Depot, Rouelles, France, 16 August 1917; marched out to unit, 21 August 1917; taken on strength of 5th Divisional Ammunition Column, 24 August 1917; transferred to 13th Field Artillery Brigade, 17 September 1917; taken on strength of 13th Field Artillery Brigade and posted to 51st Battery, 19 September 1917.

Killed in action, France, 13 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, BYRNE Patrick Joseph

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