Regimental number | 5788 |
Place of birth | Penge, England |
School | Melven Road, Penge, England |
Age on arrival in Australia | 24 |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Butcher |
Address | 412 Harris Street, Pyrmont, Sydney, New South Wales |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 28 |
Next of kin | Mother, Mrs C Harding, 4 Jasmine Grove, Surrey, England |
Enlistment date | |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 3rd Battalion, 18th Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/20/3 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A55 Kyarra on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 13th Battalion |
Other details from Roll of Honour Circular |
'I have enclosed the address of Mrs Birch, the lady my son lodged with. He worked for Saxton and Bim Timber Merchants, Sydney and Mr Birch was Foreman so they could you tell you what part to home my sons name put it is since my sons joined up they moved to Petersham, I think it was quite in Sydney they lived before.' (Letter written by Catherine Harding, 11 Jasmine Grove, Anerley, Penge, Mother of the late Pte H.A. Harding.) |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Place of death or wounding | Polygon Wood, Ypres, Belgium |
Age at death from cemetery records | 30 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The 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 | 69 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Parents: George and Catherine HARDING, 11 Jasmine Grove, Anerley, London |
Other details |
War service: Western Front Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal |