The AIF Project

George Thomas ADAMS

Regimental number3525
Place of birthEnoggera, Queensland
SchoolEnoggera State School, Queensland
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationStockman
AddressToowoomba, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation20
Height5' 2"
Weight114 lbs
Next of kinSister, Miss Nellie Adams, Gregory Terrace, Brisbane, Queensland
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date28 December 1916
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll28 December 1916
Place of enlistmentToowoomba, Queensland
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name52nd Battalion 9th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/69/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A33 Ayrshire on 24 January 1917
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll52nd Battalion
FateKilled in Action 18 October 1917
Date of death18 October 1917
Age at death19
Age at death from cemetery records19
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
154
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: George Thomas and Jane ADAMS. Native of Enoggera, Queensland
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 24 January 1917; disembarked Devonport, England, 12 April 1917; marched in, 13th Training Bn, Codford, 13 April 1917.

Embarked Folkestone to join the British Expeditionary Force, France, 6 August 1917; marched in, 4th Divisional Base Depot, Havre, 8 August 1917; proceeded to join unit in the field, 22 August 1917; taken on strength, 52nd Bn, 24 August 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 18 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, ADAMS George Thomas

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