Regimental number | 8973 |
Place of birth | Adelaide, South Australia |
School | May College, Adelaide, and Christian Brothers School, Perth, Western Australia |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Clerk |
Address | Perth, Western Australia |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 26 |
Next of kin | Father, C M M Hird, 20 Brookman's Buildings, Barrack Street, Perth, Western Australia |
Enlistment date | |
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll | |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 2nd Australian Stationary Hospital, 14th Reinforcement |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT A28 Miltiades on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 11th Battalion |
Other details from Roll of Honour Circular | 'On leaving school entered an Insurance Office left to ..... his Fathers ..... the land boom started in W.A. He and his brother got the land fever and went farming, they were always fond of animals and sport. At time of joining the AIF he had a fast mare in training for racing. He got a gold medal for best batting average in 1914/15 from the Upper Swan Cricket Club.' (details from father) |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Place of death or wounding | Ypres, Belgium |
Age at death | 28 |
Age at death from cemetery records | 28 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 17), 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. |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Parents: Charles and Emily HIRD, Brookman's Buildings, Perth, Western Australia. Native of South Australia |
Family/military connections | Brother: 29257 Gunner Harold Eustace HIRD, 3rd Divisional Ammunition Column, returned to Australia, 18 December 1918. Both brothers applied for enlistment at the 1st and 2nd call for men by the time they got to Perth all vacancies were filled. They were turned away twice. |
Other details |
War service: Western Front Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal |