The AIF Project

William EADE

Regimental number386
Place of birthSouthern Cross, Queensland
SchoolSouthern Cross State School, Queensland
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationMotor mechanic
AddressFanning Siding via Townsville, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation21.3
Height5' 9.5"
Weight140 lbs
Next of kinFather, A Eade, Fanning Siding via Townsville, Queensland
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date19 February 1916
Place of enlistmentCharters Towers, Queensland
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit nameMachine Gun Company 1, Reinforcement 5
AWM Embarkation Roll number24/6/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A73 Commonwealth on 19 September 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll1st Machine Gun Battalion
Other details from Roll of Honour CircularAttestation Form states place of birth as Charters Towers, Queensland.
FateKilled in Action 21 September 1917
Place of death or woundingYpres, Belgium
Age at death22
Age at death from cemetery records22
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
177
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Alfred and Catherine EADE, 14 Mile Creek, Fanning Siding, Great Northern Railway, North Queensland. Native of Southern Cross, North Queensland
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked from Melbourne, 19 September 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 14 November 1916. Marched in to Australian Machine Gun Training Depot, 23 November 1916. Taken on strength, 21st Machine Gun Company, 15 January 1917. Found guilty, 7 February 1917, of being absent without leave, 2 am, 5 February 1917, to 8 am, 6 February 1917: awarded 7 days' confined to barracks and forfeiture of 2 days' pay.

Proceeded overseas to France, 17 March 1917. Found guilty, 30 July 1917, of conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline in that he appeared on parade (1) Unshaven (2) Improperly dressed: awarded 2 days' confined to Company.

Killed in action, Belgium, 21 September 1917. Buried Belgian Battery Military Cemetery, 1 mile SW of Ypres.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, EADE William

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