The AIF Project

Holderness ADAMTHWAITE

Regimental number5646
Place of birthQuambatook, Victoria
SchoolQuambatook State School, Victoria
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationFarmer
AddressQuambatook, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation35
Height5' 9.5"
Weight147 lbs
Next of kinBrother, A E Adamthwaite, Quambatook, Victoria
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date18 February 1916
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll18 February 1916
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name6th Battalion, 18th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/23/4
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A33 Ayrshire on 3 July 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll59th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 26 September 1917
Place of death or woundingPolygon Wood, Ypres, Belgium
Date of death26 September 1917
Age at death37
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 29), 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
166
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Joseph and Emma ADAMTHWAITE. Native of Quambatook, Victoria
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Melbourne, 3 July 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 2 September 1916; marched in, 2nd Training Bn, Perham Downs, 2 September 1916.

Embarked England to join the British Expeditionary Force, France, 14 October 1916; marched in, 1st Australian Divisional Base Depot, Etaples, 16 October 1916.

Re-allocated as a reinforcement for 59th Bn, 31 October 1916.

Taken on strength, 59th Bn, France, 3 November 1916.

Wounded in action, France, 22 November 1916; admitted to 5th Australian Field Ambulance (gun shot wound, back), 25 November 1916; transferred to 38th Casualty Clearing Station, 26 November 1916; transferred to No. 14 Ambulance Train, 27 November 1916; transferred to 12th General Hospital, Rouen, 28 November 1916; embarked Rouen for treatment in England, 5 December 1916; admitted to 2nd Birmingham War Hospital, 6 December 1916; transferred to 3rd Auxiliary Hospital, 22 December 1916; proceeded on furlough, Britain, 26 February 1917; marched in, No. 4 Command Depot, Wareham, 13 March 1917.

Marched in, Drafting Depot, Perham Downs, 28 March 1917.

Embarked Folkestone to rejoin unit in the field, 25 April 1917; marched in, 5th Australian Divisional Depot, Etaples, 26 April 1917.

Marched out to unit, 30 April 1917; rejoined 59th Bn, France, 30 April 1917.

Reported missing in action, Belgium, 26 September 1917.

Court of Inquiry held in the field, 22 March 1918, pronounced fate 'killed in action, in the field, 26 September 1917'.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, ADAMTHWAITE Holderness

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