The AIF Project

Justin Thomas Augustine HANLEY

Regimental number349
Place of birthNorwood, South Australia
SchoolNorthfield Public School, Yatala, South Australia
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationMechanic
AddressStockdale, Adelaide, South Australia
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation22
Next of kinFather, Thomas Hanley, Stockdale, South Australia
Previous military service10th Battalion Adelaide Rifles
Enlistment date19 August 1914
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name10th Battalion, G Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/27/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board Transport A11 Ascanius on 20 October 1914
Rank from Nominal RollSergeant
Unit from Nominal Roll50th Battalion
Recommendations (Medals and Awards)

Military Medal (awarded 28 August 1916)


Recommendation date: 19 August 1916

Other details from Roll of Honour Circular"Mentioned in Despatches fifth supplement No. 29827 to the London Gazette of 16th November, 1916 for conspicuous, bravery, untiring energy, and devotion to duty during 12th to 15th August, 1916. M.M." Details from Father.
FateKilled in Action 27 September 1917
Place of death or woundingBelgium
Age at death from cemetery records25
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
150
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Thomas and Louisa HANLEY, Stockade Reserve, South Australia. Native of Northfield
Medals

Military Medal

'Conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty near MOUQUET FARM during the 12th to 15th August, 1916. Under a continuous heavy barrage he repeatedly delivered to and from an isolated post most important written and verbal messages, at the same time carrying water and stretchers to wounded men, and fighting when there was nothing else to do. The energy he displayed was marvellous.'
Source: 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 62
Date: 19 April 1917

Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

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

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