The AIF Project

William Henry HOWELL

Regimental number1292
Place of birthBrookside Vic
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationEngine driver
AddressBoulder PO, Boulder, Western Australia
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation24
Next of kinFather, William Howell, Brookside, Victoria
Enlistment date21 July 1915
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll19 July 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name32nd Battalion, D Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/49/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board HMAT A2 Geelong on 18 November 1915
The 32nd Bn (Headquarters, Signallers, A, B, C, and D Companies) embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on two ships, HMAT A2 'Geelong', on 18 November 1915, and HMAT A13 'Katuna', on 24 November 1915. The Embarkation Roll does not distinguish between these ships, and it is therefore not possible from the Embarkation Roll to ascertain on which ship an individual embarked.
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board HMAT A13 Katuna on 24 November 1915
The 32nd Bn (Headquarters, Signallers, A, B, C, and D Companies) embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on two ships, HMAT A2 'Geelong', on 18 November 1915, and HMAT A13 'Katuna', on 24 November 1915. The Embarkation Roll does not distinguish between these ships, and it is therefore not possible from the Embarkation Roll to ascertain on which ship an individual embarked.
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll12th Trench Mortar Battery
FateKilled in Action 8 June 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
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: William and Annie HOWELL, Bright, Victoria. Native of Brookside, Victoria
Other details

War service: Western Front

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

Print format    


© The AIF Project 2024, UNSW Canberra. Not to be reproduced without permission.