William Clarence CURRY

Regimental number6651
Place of birthBalmain, New South Wales
SchoolBurwood Public School, New South Wales
ReligionMethodist
OccupationElectrical engineer
AddressStrathfield, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation18
Height5' 11.25"
Weight164 lbs
Next of kinFather, R Curry, 38 The Avenue, Strathfield, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date17 December 1916
Place of enlistmentSydney, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name19th Battalion, 19th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/36/4
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A18 Wiltshire on 7 February 1917
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll19th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 7 October 1917
Age at death19
Age at death from cemetery records19
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
88
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Mr R. and Mrs E.R. CURRY, 38 The Avenue, Strathfield, New South Wales. Native of Sydney
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 7 February 1917; disembarked Devonport, England, 11 April 1917, and marched in to 5th Training Bn, Rollestone.

Proceeded overseas to France,16 July 1917; taken on strength, 19 Bn, 1 August 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 7 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal