Walton Robert GRAYSON

Regimental number719
Place of birthMelbourne Victoria
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationLabourer
Address438 Church Street, Richmond, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation30
Next of kinFather, T.W. Grayson, 438 Church Street, Richmond, Victoria
Enlistment date24 October 1914
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll21 October 1914
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name4th Light Horse Regiment, 2nd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number10/9/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A13 Katuna on 3 February 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll2nd Light Horse Regiment
FateKilled in Action 26 April 1918
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 7), 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
9
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Thomas and Lilly GRAYSON (nee White), Central Wharf, Millers Point, New South Wales. Native of Williamstown, Victoria
Medals

Distinguished Conduct Medal

'For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. After a severe fall with his horse into a shell hole, from which he ews extricated with great difficulty, he went on after his detachment carrying his Kotchkiss rifle, which he brought into action in time to stop a hostile field gun from being withdrawn. He was badly bruised and shaken, and showed a fine example of pluck and determination.'
Source: 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 219
Date: 20 December 1917