Regimental number | 2696 |
Place of birth | Sydney, New South Wales |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Motor driver |
Address | Rhodeswell, Northcott Street, Marrickville, New South Wales |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 28 |
Height | 5' 4.5" |
Weight | 116 lbs |
Next of kin | Mother, Mrs E Wickers, Rhodeswell, Northcott Street, Marrickville, New South Wales |
Enlistment date | |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 13th Battalion, 8th Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/30/2 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A54 Runic on |
Regimental number from Nominal Roll | 2696A |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 45th Battalion |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 27), 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 | 141 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Parents: Walter Richard and Evelyn WICKERS |
Medals |
Military Medal Source: 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 219 Date: |
Family/military connections | Brother: 6757 Driver Cecil George WICKERS, 8th Field Ambulance, returned to Australia, 13 April 1919; 1420 Lance Corporal Arthur Robert WICKERS, 34th Bn, returned to Australia, 19 February 1919. |
Other details |
War service: joined 13th Bn, Mudros, 23 October 1915. Disembarked Alexandria, 1 January 1916 (general Gallipoli evacuation). Taken on strength, 45th Bn, 3 March 1916. Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 2 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 8 June 1916. Admitted to 12th Australian Field Ambulance,27 July 1916 (abscess, left foot); transferred to 13th Australian Field Ambulance, 27 July 1916; to Divisional Rest Station, 27 July 1916; discharged to Lines, 30 July 1916. Awarded Military Medal, 23 June 1917, for bravery in the field. Killed in action, 7 June 1917. Medals: Military Medal, 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal |