The AIF Project

Reginald HARRISON

Regimental number2959
Place of birthPetersham, New South Wales
ReligionMethodist
OccupationClerk
Address8 The Avenue, Strathfield, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation22
Next of kinFather, J Harrison, Eidyoll, 8 The Avenue, Strathfield, New South Wales
Enlistment date25 July 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name4th Battalion, 9th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/21/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A8 Argyllshire on 30 September 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll56th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 30 September 1917
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
162
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Joined 4th Bn, Tel el Kebir, Egypt, 6 January 1916. Transferred to 56th Bn, 16 February 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 19 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 29 June 1916.

Admitted to 13th General Hospital, Boulogne, 12 July 1916 (abcess, neck); transferred to England, 13 July 1916, and admitted to Red House Auxiliary Hospital, Cromer. Transferred to 1st Australian Auxiliary Hospital, 29 July 1916; discharged to No. 1 command Depot, 10 August 1916. Proceeded overseas to France, 9 September 1916; rejoined Bn, 26 September 1916.

Detached to Sniping School, 3rd Army, 25 June 1917; rejoined Bn, 8 July 1917.

Killed in action, 30 September 1917.

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

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