Regimental number | 550 |
Place of birth | Moringa, South Australia |
School | Queens School, North Adelaide, South Australia |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Station overseer |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 20 |
Height | 5' 8.5" |
Weight | 158 lbs |
Next of kin | Father, Waldemar Gaskell Hawkes, Koonoona Station, Burra, South Australia |
Previous military service | Served in the Cadets for 18 months, and in the 23rd Light Horse for 18 months. |
Enlistment date | |
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll | |
Place of enlistment | Adelaide, South Australia |
Rank on enlistment | Lance Corporal |
Unit name | 9th Light Horse Regiment, Machine Gun Section |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 10/14/1 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board Transport A10 Karroo on |
Regimental number from Nominal Roll | Commissioned |
Rank from Nominal Roll | 2nd Lieutenant |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 2nd Machine Gun Battalion |
Promotions |
2nd Lieutenant Promotion date: Lieutenant Promotion date: |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Place of death or wounding | Passchendaele, Ypres, Belgium |
Age at death | 23 |
Age at death from cemetery records | 22 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The 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 | 178 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Parents: Waldemar and Isabella HAWKES, Koonoona, Kooringa, South Australia |
Other details |
War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front Proceeded to join Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 16 May 1915. Wounded in action [date not recorded]; disembarked Malta from 'Itonus', 13 August 1915 (gun shot wound, right chest, neck and arm); admitted to Tigne hospital, 14 August 1915; transferred to England, 23 August 1915. Embarked England to rejoin MEF, 25 March 1916; taken on strength, 3rd Training Bn, Tel el Kebir, Egypt, 12 April 1916. Admitted to No 2 Australian Stationary Hospital, 9 May 1916 (mumps); discharge date not recorded. Embarked Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 29 May 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England (date not recorded). Wounded in action, 18 November 1916 (gun shot wound, right thigh); admitted to No. 6 General Hospital, Rouen, 20 November 1916; transferred to England, 22 November 1916, and admitted to 1st Southern General Hospital, 23 November 1916. discharged, 29 December 1916, and granted furlough to report to No. 1 Command Depot, Perham Downs, 13 January 1917. Proceeded overseas to France, 4 August 1917; taken on strength, 21st Machine Gun Company, 12 August 1917. Promoted Lt, 6 September 1917. Killed in action, Belgium, 29 October 1917. Buried Belgian Battery Corner Military Cemetery, 1 mile south west of Ypres. Individual graves not subsequently identified. Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal |