The AIF Project

John Walter DALE

Regimental number3095
Place of birthMaribyrnong, Victoria
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationBricklayer
AddressPark Road, Maribyrnong, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation24.3
Height5' 4.75"
Weight126 lbs
Next of kinFather, J Dale, Park Road, Maribyrnong, Victoria
Previous military serviceNil (previously rejected for AIF enlistment on account of eyes)
Enlistment date16 July 1915
Place of enlistmentMelbourne, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name5th Battalion, 10th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/22/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board RMS Osterley on 29 September 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll58th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 24 September 1917
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 29), 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
165
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: John and Mary Ann Georgina DALE, Park Road, Maribyrnong, Victoria. Native of Melbourne
Family/military connectionsBrother: 3094 Pte Ernest DALE, 58th Bn, returned to Australia, 8 April 1919.
Other details

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal

SourcesNAA: B2455, DALE John Walter

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