Charles CURRY

Regimental number2350
Place of birthKoo Wee Rup, Victoria
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationLabourer
AddressFootscray, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation21
Height5' 5.5"
Weight154 lbs
Next of kinFather, Denis J Purcell, 93 Geelong Road, Footscray, Melbourne, Victoria
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date13 May 1915
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll28 May 1915
Place of enlistmentMelbourne, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name14th Battalion, 7th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/31/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board RMS Persia on 10 August 1915
Rank from Nominal RollSergeant
Unit from Nominal Roll14th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 21 October 1917
Place of death or woundingBelgium
Age at death23
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
72
Family/military connectionsBrothers: 2589 Sergeant Denis CURRY MM, 14th Bn, returned to Australia, 7 July 1919; 5062 Pte Francis CURRY, 14th Bn, returned to Australia, 12 May 1919.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Taken on strength, 14th Bn, Mudros, 23 October 1915.

Disembarked Alexandria, 1 January 1916 (general Gallipoli evacuation).

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 1 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 8 June 1916.

Appointed Lance Corporal, 5 July 1916; Temporary Corporal, 1 September 1916; Corporal, 1 November 1916; Temporary Sergeant, 20 Apriol 1917; Sergeant, 20 June 1917.

Detached to No 1 Training Camp, 4th Australian Division Base Depot, Etaples, 3 May 1917; rejoined unit, 5 May 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 21 October 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, CURRY Charles