The AIF Project

Arnold Cecil CARR

Regimental number1798
Place of birthHerberton, Queensland
SchoolState School, Herberton, Queensland
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationMiner
AddressCairns, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation19.6
Height5' 10"
Weight140 lbs
Next of kinFather, William Thorn Carr, Black Soil, Herberton via Cairns, Queensland
Previous military serviceNil (previously rejected for AIF enlistment on medical grounds, 'since operated on')
Enlistment date1 April 1916
Place of enlistmentCairns, Queensland
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name41st Battalion, 2nd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/58/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board HMAT A42 Boorara on 16 August 1916
FateKilled in Action 5 October 1917
Age at death from cemetery records21
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 25), 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
133
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: William and Emily CARR, Herberton, Queensland
Family/military connectionsCousin: 6125 Pte William Thorne CARR, 52nd Bn, killed in action, 21 October 1917.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked, Brisbane, 16 August 1916; disembarked, Plymouth, England, 4 November 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 24 November 1916.

Found guilty, 28 July 1917, of failing to appear at the place of parade appointed by his C.O.: awarded forfeiture of 2 days' pay.

Killed in action, Belgium, 5 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, CARR Arnold Cecil
Red Cross File 0690812Q

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