The AIF Project

William ACQUROFF

Regimental number3226
Place of birthEdinburgh, Scotland
SchoolNorman School Edinburgh, Scotland
Age on arrival in Australia23
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationLithographer
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation23
Height5' 6"
Weight136 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs Acquroff, 111 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh, Scotland
Previous military serviceServed in Boys Brigade, Edinburgh, served 4 years 5th Royal Scots (Territorials).
Enlistment date8 July 1915
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll8 July 1915
Place of enlistmentMelbourne, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name6th Battalion, 11th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/23/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A71 Nestor on 11 October 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll6th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 4 October 1917
Age at death25
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
45
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: John and Agnes Henry ACQUROFF, 111 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh, Scotland
Family/military connectionsBrother: 3782 Pte Alexander Fletcher ACQUROFF, Australian Flying Corps [no details of fate entered on Nominal Roll]
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Melbourne, 11 October 1915.

Attached to Major General Cox's Headquarters Staff, Zeitoun, 8 March 1916.

Attached to 5th Divisional Headquarters Staff, Egypt, 27 March 1916.

Embarked Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, France, 17 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 23 June 1916.

Proceeded on leave to England, 26 January 1917.

Admitted to Bulford Military Hospital (while on leave: venereal disease), 5 February 1917; transferred to Venereal Disease Hospital, Parkhouse, 12 March 1917; marched out to No. 1 Command Depot, Perham Downs, 29 March 1917; marched out to Camp Headquarters, Perham Downs, 14 April 1917.

Embarked Southampton to reinforce 6th Bn, France, 27 May 1917; marched into 1st Australian Divisional Base Depot, Havre, 28 May 1917.

Proceeded to join unit in the field, 8 June 1917; taken on strength, 9th Bn, 16 June 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 4 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, ACQUROFF William

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