The AIF Project

Edgar BALDOCK

Regimental number4288
Place of birthMole Creek, Tasmania
SchoolKimberley State School, Tasmania
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationFarmer
AddressKimberley, Tasmania
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation21
Height5' 9.5"
Weight178 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs Anna Jones, Kimberley , Tasmania
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date4 September 1915
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll4 September 1915
Place of enlistmentHobart, Tasmania
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name12th Battalion, 13th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/29/4
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A19 Afric on 5 January 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll1st Machine Gun Battalion
FateDied of wounds 4 October 1917
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 31), 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
177
Family/military connectionsBrother: 679 Walter BALDOCK, 12th Bn, killed in action, 23 August 1918.
Other details

WSEW

Disembarked Suez, 11 February 1916.

Embarked Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 29 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, France, 4 April 1916.

Taken on strength, 12th Bn, France, 28 June 1916.

Transferred to 3rd Machine Gun Company, 8 February 1917.

Admitted to hospital, 4 March 1917 (septic left foot); transferred to Casualty Clearing Station; to Ambulance Train No 5, 9 March 1917; to No 12 General Hospital, Rouen, 10 March 1917; transferred to England, 12 March 1917; admitted to 2nd Southern General Hospital, England, 13 March 1917; to 2nd Auxiliary Hospital, 27 March 1917; discharged on furlough, 29 March 1917, to report to No 3 Command Depot, 13 April 1917; marched into No 3 Command Depot, Hurdcott, 13 April 1917; marched into Depot, Perham Downs, 9 May 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 5 June 1917; marched into Machine Gun Base Depot, Camiers, 6 June 1917; marched out to 3rd Machine Gun Company, 21 June 1917; rejoined unit, 23 June 1917.

Died of wounds received in action, Belgium, 4 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, BALDOCK Edgar

Print format    


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