Stephen Joseph CRYAN

Regimental number3786
Place of birthKelvin Grove, Queensland
SchoolSouth Brisbane State School, Queensland
Other trainingNil
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationPrinter's improver
AddressProspect Terrace, South Brisbane, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation21
Next of kinMother, Mrs Bridget Cryan, Prospect Terrace, South Brisbane, Queensland
Previous military serviceServed for 1 year in the 8th Bn, Senior Cadets; 6 months in the Citizen Military Forces.
Enlistment date9 February 1916
Place of enlistmentBrisbane, Queensland
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name31st Battalion, 9th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/48/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board HMAT A49 Seang Choon on 19 September 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll31st Battalion
FateKilled in Action 26 September 1917
Place of death or woundingPolygon Wood, Belgium
Age at death22
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 23), 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
118
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Brisbane, 19 June 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 9 December 1916. Marched in to 8th Training Bn, Hurdcott, 11 December 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 16 January 1917; taken on strength, 31st Bn, 7 February 1917.

Admitted to 15th Australian Field Ambulance, 20 February 1917 (trench feet); transferred to 3rd Casualty Clearing Station, 6 March 1917; to Ambulance Train No 5, 9 March 1917; to 11th Stationary Hospital, Rouen, 10 March 1917 (pleurisy); to England, 13 March 1917, and admitted to Kitchener Military Hospital, Brighton, 14 March 1917. Discharged on furlough, 14 April 1917, to report to No 1 Command Depot, Perham Downs, 30 April 1917. Proceeded overseas to France, 14 June 1917; rejoined unit, 1 July 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 26 September 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal