Charles Francis ARNOLD

Regimental number2846
Place of birthHighton near Geelong, Victoria
SchoolState School, Victoria
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationSlaughterman
AddressBelmont, Geelong, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation27
Next of kinMother, Mrs J Arnold, Belmont, Geelong, Victoria
Previous military serviceHe was a member of Military Corps for over two years and was discharged when going to Melbourne and was awarded excellent credentials.
Enlistment date2 August 1915
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll22 July 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name23rd Battalion, 6th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/40/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A38 Ulysses on 27 October 1915
Rank from Nominal RollSergeant
Unit from Nominal RollTrench Mortar Battery
Recommendations (Medals and Awards)

Military Medal


Recommendation date: 18 August 1917

FateKilled in Action 1 October 1917
Place of death or woundingFlanders
Age at death29
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 31), 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
19
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: John and Jane ARNOLD. Native of Highton, Victoria
Medals

Military Medal

'At YPRES on 24th July 1917, one gun of the V/5 Australian heavy T.M. Battery was allotted the task of engaging a hostile strong point to cover the left flank of a raiding party. This brought down heavy retaliation by 5.9" Hows. One direct hit on the pit dislodged the bed of the Mortar. No. 2846 Sergeant C.F. ARNOLD immediately dismounted the gun and mounted it in an auxiliary pit maintaining it in action. This N.C.O. by his splendid example initiative and coolness inspired his detachment to maintain an effective fire.'
Source: 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 9
Date: 24 January 1918

Other detailsMedals: Military Medal, 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal