The AIF Project

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.

In granting his consent to his enlistment, his father, A.W. Hamond, wrote: 'My son Alfred William Hamond wishes to go to the front to serve his King and Country & therefore I have consented to allow him to go. He is a turner & fitter by trade & would be thankful if you could see your way clear to put him in the Maxim Gun section'.

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Proceeded to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 30 August 1915.

Transferred to 21st Bn, Gallipoli, 23 November 1915.

Admitted to 15th General Hospital, Alexandria, 16 December 1915 (frost bite); discharged to duty, 18 January 1916. Taken on strength, 6th Machine Gun Company, 1 March 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 19 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 24 March 1916.

Admitted to 6th Australian Field Ambulance, 12 October 1916 (acute appendicitis); transferred to 8th Stationary Hospital, Wimereux, 15 October 1916. Transferred to England, 18 October 1916, and admitted to 3rd London General Hospital, 20 October 1916. Transferred to 2nd Auxiliary Hospital, 24 November 1916; discharged, 28 November 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 27 April 1917; taken on strength, 6th Machine Gun Company, 13 May 1917. Found guilty of being absent without leave, 7.30 pm-9.30 pm, 19 June 1917: awarded 168 hours Field Punishment No. 2.

Killed in action, Belgium, 20 September 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal