The AIF Project

Robert HANNAH

Regimental number1360
Place of birth45 Well Street, Paisley, Scotland
SchoolSt Mirins School
Age on arrival in Australia14
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationSelector
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation22
Next of kinFather, Robert Hannah c/o J Cove, Kebble Paisley, Scotland
Enlistment date24 December 1914
Rank on enlistmentCorporal
Unit name9th Battalion, 2nd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/26/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board HMAT A48 Seang Bee on 13 February 1915
Regimental number from Nominal RollCommissioned
Rank from Nominal Roll2nd Lieutenant
Unit from Nominal Roll49th Battalion
Recommendations (Medals and Awards)

Distingushed Conduct Medal


Recommendation date: Unspecified

Other details from Roll of Honour Circular

Enlisted 24 December 1914 - 9th Bn, 2nd Reinforcements. Taken on strength, 9th Bn, 4 May 1915. Tranferred to 49th Bn, 27 February 1916. Commissioned on 16 September 1916. Wounded (but remained at duty), 21 November 1916. Tranferred to 13th L.T.M. Coy on 21 September 1917. Promoted Lieutenant, 8 October 1917.

FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 17), 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
20
Medals

Distinguished Conduct Medal

'For conspicuous gallantry in action. He led a party of men to assist the left flank of the battalion with great courage and initiative. Later, under very heavy fire, he maintained an adequate supply of bombs and ammunition to the front line.'
Source: 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 62
Date: 19 April 1917

Family/military connectionsBrother: 523 Pte James HANNAH, 2nd Light Horse Regiment, killed in action, 14 May 1915.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

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

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