Harry Cyril BASTOW

Regimental number373
Place of birthInglewood, Victoria
SchoolState School No 2022, Ballarat, Victoria
ReligionProtestant
OccupationBlacksmith
AddressBallarat, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation23
Height5' 5"
Weight146 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs Bastow, Clyde Street, Ballarat North, Victoria
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date20 August 1914
Place of enlistmentMelbourne, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentShoeing Smith
Unit name4th Light Horse Regiment, C Squadron
AWM Embarkation Roll number10/9/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board Transport A18 Wiltshire on 19 October 1914
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll8th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 4 October 1917
Place of death or woundingBelgium
Age at death25
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
52
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Annie and the late John BASTOW. Native of Inglewood, Victoria
Family/military connectionsBrother: 27 Driver Frederick Ivan BASTOW, 4th Machine Gun Company, returned to Australia, 25 November 1917; died at Ballarat of tuberculosis contracted in France after 3 years' service.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 20 May 1915.

Sick to hospital, 22 November 1915 (jaundice); transferred to Malta on board 'Gloucester Castle', 29 November 1915; admitted to St Andrew's Hospital (jaundice).

Transferred to All Saints' Hospital, 2 January 1916.

Found guilty under Section 46 (2) of the Army Act, 11 January 1916, of (1) drunk in hospital (2) creating a disturbance: awarded forfeiture of 3 days' pay.

Rejoined regiment at Heliopolis, Egypt, 27 January 1916.

Transferred to 'B' Squadron, 7 March 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 24 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, France, 27 March 1916.

Taken on strength, 1st Anzac Mounted Regiment, 13 May 1916; transferred to 2nd Anzac Mounted Regiment, 7 July 1916

Proceeded on leave to England, 25 November 1916. Admitted to Shorncliffe Military Hospital, 6 December 1916; transferred to Canadian Hospital, Etchingham, 25 January 1917; discharged from hospital, 15 February 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 28 February 1917; rejoined 2nd Anzac Light Horse Regiment, 18 March 1917. Transferred to 8th Bn, 5 June 1917 (as Shoeing Smith).

Found guilty, 2 August 1917, of being absent from Tattoo, 29 July 1917, until 1030, 30 July 1917: awarded 28 days' Field Punishment No. 2 and forfeiture of 30 days' pay.

Admitted to New Zealand Stationary Hospital, Hazebrouck, 2 August 1918 (pyrexia, unknown origin); transferred to 58th General Hospital, St Omer, 9 August 1917; to 7th Convalescent Depot, Boulogne, 19 August 1917.

Found guilty, 23 August 1917, of being absent, 2100-2215, 23 August 1917, and not complying with an order given by an MP: awarded 7 days' confined to barracks and deprivation of 2 days' pay. Rejoined Bn, 19 September 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 4 October 1917.

Buried few hundred yards SE of Zonnebeke.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, BASTOW Harry Cyril