The AIF Project

Frank Robert GOULD

Regimental number1837
Place of birthWarracknabeal, Victoria
ReligionMethodist
OccupationFarmer
AddressEast Cannum PO, East Cannum, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation26
Height5' 7"
Weight144 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs Emily Gould, East Cannum via Warracknabeal, Victoria
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date4 April 1916
Place of enlistmentHorsham, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name39th Battalion, 2nd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/56/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board RMS Orontes on 16 August 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll39th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 4 October 1917
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, 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
131
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Melbourne, 16 August 1916; disembarked Plymouth, 2 October 1916; marched in to 10th Training Bn, Larkhill, 2 October 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 23 November 1916.

Wounded in action, 7 June 1917 (gassed), and admitted to 9th Field Ambulance; transferred same day to 2nd Australian Casualty Clearing Station; by Ambulance train No 26 to 47th General hospital, Le Treport, and admitted, 8 June 1917; to 3rd Convalescent Depot, 29 June 1917; discharged to 3rd Australian Division Base Depot, Rouelles, 9 July 1916; marched out to unit, 18 August 1917; rejoined unit, 21 August 1917.

Reported missing in action, Belgium, 4 October 1917; fate subsequently determined as killed in action, 4 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

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