The AIF Project

Roy Fergus CUNNINGHAM

Regimental number1853
Place of birthGoulburn, New South Wales
SchoolEast Goulburn, New South Wales
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationLabourer
AddressMay Street, Goulburn East, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation25
Height5' 9"
Weight150 lbs
Next of kinFather, William Cunningham, May Street, Goulburn East, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date3 September 1915
Place of enlistmentGoulburn, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name6th Light Horse Regiment, 13th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number10/11/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A60 Aeneas on 20 December 1915
Rank from Nominal RollGunner
Unit from Nominal Roll3rd Field Artillery Brigade
FateKilled in Action 26 October 1917
Place of death or woundingFrance
Age at death27
Age at death from cemetery records27
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
12
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Commemorated in Goulburn General Cemetery, New South Wales. Photo: Peter Dennis. Parents: William and Sarah CUNNINGHAM, 'Arundel', May Street, East Goulburn, New South Wales
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Taken on strength, 6th Light Horse Regiment, Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Maadi, 17 January 1916. Taken on strength, 2nd Reserve Regiment, 1 March 1916. Taken on strength, 25th Howitzer Brigade, 28 March 1916, and posted to 114th Battery. Transferred to 5th Divisional Ammunition Column, 4 May 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 19 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 25 June 1916. Transferred to 115th Battery, 7 July 1916; to 3rd Fiueld Artillery Brigade, 2 April 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 26 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, CUNNINGHAM Roy Fergus

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