The AIF Project

John GLENISTER

Regimental number2187
Place of birthNorth Williamstown, Victoria
SchoolState School, Victoria
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationStevedore
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation25
Height5' 4"
Weight150 lbs
Next of kinAunt, Mrs L Morrison, 20 Renney Street, North Williamstown, Melbourne, Victoria
Enlistment date3 July 1915
Place of enlistmentMelbourne, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name21st Battalion, 4th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/38/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A20 Hororata on 27 September 1915
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll21st Battalion
FateKilled in Action 9 October 1917
Place of death or woundingFrance
Age at death24
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 23), 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
93
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: John and Emily GLENISTER. Native of Victoria
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Taken on strength, 21st Bn, Tel el Kebir, 7 January 1916.

Embarked Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 19 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 26 March 1916. Sick on board; admitted to Lahore Isolation Hospital, Marseilles, 25 March 1916 (mumps); discharged from 2nd Australian General Hospital, 15 April 1916, to 2nd Australian Division Base Depot, Etaples, 15 April 1916; rejoined Bn, 8 June 1916.

Admitted to 4th Field Ambulance, 9 April 1917 (otitis media); transferred to 56th Casualty Clearing Station, 14 April 1917; discharged to 3rd Canadian Stationary Hospital, Doullens, 15 April 1917; rejoined Bn, 6 May 1917.

Admitted to 5th Australian Field Ambulance, 9 June 1917; transferred to 56th Casualty Clearing Station, 16 June 1917 (trench fever); rejoined Bn, 11 July 1917.

Admitted to 6th Australian Field Ambulance, 2 August 1917 (gonorrhoea); transferred same day to 40th Stationary Hospital, St Omer; to 39th General Hospital, Havre, 4 August 1917; discharged to Base Depot, 19 September 1917; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 49 days. Rejoined Bn, 5 October 1917.

Reported missing in action, Belgium, 9 October 1917. Court of Enquiry, 7 February 1918, confirmed fate as killed in action, 9 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

Print format    


© The AIF Project 2024, UNSW Canberra. Not to be reproduced without permission.