The AIF Project

George Ernest Albert AGATE

Regimental number10117
Place of birthLittlehampton, Sussex, England
SchoolChurch of England School, England
Age on arrival in Australia13
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationBillposter
AddressRocky Point Road, Arncliffe, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation21
Height5' 11"
Weight156 lbs
Next of kinFather, G Agate, Rocky Point Road, Arncliffe, New South Wales
Previous military serviceServed in the 38th Infantry, Citizen Forces
Enlistment date11 September 1915
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll11 September 1915
Place of enlistmentSydney, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentGunner
Unit nameReinforcement 2
AWM Embarkation Roll number13/33/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A35 Berrima on 17 December 1915
Rank from Nominal RollGunner
Unit from Nominal RollField Artillery Brigade
FateKilled in Action 27 September 1917
Place of death or woundingPolygon Wood, Ypres, Belgium
Date of death27 September 1917
Age at death23
Age at death from cemetery records23
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 7), 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
15
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: George and Fanny Louisa AGATE, 123 Rocky Point Road, Arncliffe, New South Wales. Native of Sussex, England
Other details

War service: Western Front

Found guilty, 10 January 1916, of being absent without leave from midnight, 29 December 1915 to midnight, 31 December 1915, Blackboy Hill Camp: fined 10/-.

Embarked Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, France, 18 March 1916; disembarked, Marseilles, 25 March 1916.

Transferred to 104th Howitzer Battery, 4th Field Artillery Brigade, France, 13 May 1916.

Killed in action, Belgium, 27 September 1917; buried at Westhoek Ridge.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, AGATE George Ernest Albert

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