The AIF Project

Joseph Edwin KEE

Regimental number1101
Place of birthFootscray, Victoria
SchoolSt Monica's School, Footscray, Victoria
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationLabourer
Address226 Gordon Street, Footscray, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation22
Height5' 10"
Weight168 lbs
Next of kinMary Kee, 226 Gordon Street, Footscray, Victoria
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date22 September 1914
Place of enlistmentMelbourne, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name5th Battalion, D Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/22/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board Transport A3 Orvieto on 21 October 1914
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll57th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 26 September 1917
Place of death or woundingPolygon Wood, Ypres, Belgium
Age at death25
Age at death from cemetery records25
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
164
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Joseph James and Mary KEE, 226 Gordon Street, Footscray, Victoria
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Embarked Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 5 April 1915.

Wounded in action, 25 April 1915 (gun shot wound, left side of head and right leg).

transferred to sick convoy to England from Alexandria, 15 May 1915, and admitted to 1st Southern General Hospital, Birmingham.

Period of treatment for venereal disease in United Kingdom to 25 September 1915: 25 days.

Admitted to Venereal Military Hospital, Portland, 26 September 1915; discharged, 5 October 1915; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 10 days.

Period of treatment for venereal disease to 22 December 1915: 19 days.

Disembarked Alexandria from England, 14 January 1916, and rejoined 5th Bn, Tel el Kebir.

Transferred to 57th Bn, 17 February 1916.

Admitted to 15th Australian Field Ambulance, 17 March 1916 (influenza).

Admitted to 2nd Australian Stationary Hospital, Tel el Kebir, 22 March 1916 (venereal warts); transferred to 1st Australian dermatological Hospital, Abbassia, 23 March 1916; discharged to Details, 19 May 1916; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 59 days.

Taken on strength, 15th Training Bn, Codford, 10 October 1916.

Admitted to 1st Australian Dermatological Hospital, Bulford, 2 November 1916 (non-venereal); discharged, 2 November 1916.

Tried by District Court Martial, Hurdcott, 28 February 1917, on charge of absenting himself without leave in that he at Bulford on 28 November 1917 having been duly discharged from hospital did illegally absent himself without leave and failed to report back to camp until apprehended by Military Police at Edinburgh, 29 January 1917; found guilty: awarded 6 months' detention; sentence confirmed, but 2 months' remitted. Forfeited a total of 202 days' pay.

Proceeded overseas to France, 14 June 1917; marched in to 5th Australian Division Base Depot, Havre, 15 June 1917.

Found guilty, 18 June 1917, of when on Active Service being absent without leave from about 9 pm until apprehended by Military Police at 9.45 pm, 15 June 1917: awarded forfeiture of 4 days' pay.

Rejoined 57th Bn, in the field, from hospital, 3 July 1917.

Admitted to 15th Field Ambulance, 8 September 1917 (nasal obstruction), and transferred same day to 4th Stationary Hospital, Arques; discharged to unit, 13 September 1917; rejoined Bn, in the field, 20 September 1917.

Killed in action, 26 September 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, KEE Joseph Edwin

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