The AIF Project

Cyrus KELLY

Regimental number5367
Place of birthWaterford, Ireland
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationHospital attendant
AddressMental Hospital, Parramatta, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation32
Height5' 8.5"
Weight144 lbs
Next of kinStep-Father, Charles Downey, 5 New Wellington Terrace, Limerick, Ireland
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date1 February 1916
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll14 January 1916
Place of enlistmentSydney, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name17th Battalion, 14th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/34/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A18 Wiltshire on 22 August 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll17th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 9 October 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
83
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney on HMAT 'Wiltshire', 22 August 1916; disembarked Plymouth, 13 October 1916, and taken on strength of No 3 Command Depot, Hurdcott; marched into 5th Training Bn, Rollestone, 4 November 1916. Proceeded to France through Folkestone, 4 June 1917; marched into 2nd Australian Divisional Base Depot, Havre, 5 June 1917; taken on strength of 17th Bn, 25 June 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 9 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, KELLY Cyrus

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