William FORD

Regimental number3298
Place of birthBrisbane, Queensland
SchoolChristian Brothers Catholic School, Brisbane, Queensland
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationDairyman
AddressMelbourne Street, West End, South Brisbane, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation22
Next of kinFather, J Ford, Upper Melbourne Street, South Brisbane, Queensland
Enlistment date29 July 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name15th Battalion, 11th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/32/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board HMAT A48 Seang Bee on 21 October 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll47th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 7 June 1917
Place of death or woundingFrance
Age at death from cemetery records23
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe 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
143
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: James and Mary FORD, Hall's Avenue, Norman Park, Queensland. Native of Brisbane, Queensland
Family/military connectionsBrother who was killed. (James Ford, Father)
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Joined 15th Bn, Moascar, 5 February 1916. transferred to 47th Bn, Tel el Kebir, 3 March 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 2 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 9 June 1916.

Wounded in action, 12 August 1916 (shell shock); admitted to 24th General Hospital, Etaples, 13 August 1916; rejoined unit, 11 September 1916.

Killed in action, 7 June 1917. Buried 750 yards east of Messines; grave lost in subsequent fighting.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal