Regimental number | 3753 |
Place of birth | Walgett, New South Wales |
Other Names | William George |
School | Walgett Public School, New South Wales |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Railway hand |
Address | Coonabran, Gunnedah, New South Wales |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 36 |
Height | 5' 10.25" |
Weight | 175 lbs |
Next of kin | Brother, J H Ashby, Coonabran, Gunnedah, New South Wales |
Enlistment date | |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 17th Battalion, 9th Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/34/2 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A54 Runic on |
Regimental number from Nominal Roll | 6704 |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 4th Battalion |
Other details from Roll of Honour Circular | On second enlistment, gave next of kin as (sister) Mrs M. Ashby, c/o G.W. Randells, Cherry Street, Barraba, New South Wales. |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Age at death from cemetery records | 38 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The 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 | 39 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Parents: James and Sarah ASHBY (nee Musset). Native of Walgett, New South Wales |
Other details |
War service: embarked from Sydney, 20 January 1916; disembarked Fremantle, 29 January 1916. Medically examined at Blackboy Hill Camp,16 February 1916; discharged in Sydney, 27 March 1916 'on account of venereal disease'. Re-enlisted, 18 July 1916, as No. 6704, Private, William George ASHBY, 4th Bn, 22nd Reinforcement, and embarked from Sydney on board SS 'Port Nicholson', 8 November 1916; disembarked Devonport, England, 10 January 1917. Proceeded overseas to France, 9 May 1917; joined 4th Bn, 15 May 1917. Killed in action, Belgium, 4 October 1917. Handwritten note on Form B103: 'Buried'. Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal Miss E. Reynolds, Quipolly, nr Quirindi, New South Wales, wrote to Base Records, 20 December 1917, asking for information regarding the whereabouts of Dennis G. Ashby: 'He sailed to the front just twelve months ago. I have an order of maintiance [sic] against him and am drawing a shilling a day out of his Military pay, and am anxious to know if there is any report of how he is getting on at the war, if you can furnish me with any word of him. I have never heard anything of him since he went away. The order is for the maintiance of his child.' She was informed, 28 December 1917, that he was reported as having been killed in action. |
Sources | NAA: B2455, ASHBY Dennis George |