The AIF Project

Harry Stanley BATES

Regimental number1884
Place of birthMt Gambier, South Australia
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationLabourer
Address5 Halifax Street, Adelaide, South Australia
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation24
Next of kinMother, Mrs Annie Bates, 5 Halifax Street, Adelaide, South Australia
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date21 May 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name27th Battalion, 3rd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/44/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board RMS Morea on 26 August 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll32nd Battalion
Other details from Roll of Honour CircularEnlisted 21 May 1915 - 27th Bn, 3rd Reinforcements. Taken on strength, 27th Bn, 12 October 1915. Transferred to 32nd Bn, 12 March 1916. Wounded in the battle of Fromelles, 19 July 1916.
FateKilled in Action 16 March 1918
Place of death or woundingBelgium
Age at death27
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 23), 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
119
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Joined 27th Bn at Gallipoli, 12 October 1915. Disembarked Alexandria from Mudros, 10 January 1916 (general Gallipoli evacuation). Found guilty of being absent without leave, Tel el Kebir, from Reveille, 22 January, to 2230, 1 February 1916: awarded 11 days' detention and forfeiture of 11 days' pay. Found guilty of being absent without leave, Tel el Kebir, 1300, 3 February, to 1700, 5 February 1916: awarded 3 days' Field Punishment No. 2. Transferred to 32nd Bn, 13 March 1916; appointed driver, 16 March 1916. Found guilty of being absent without leave, 1030-2015, 7 June 1916: awarded 6 days' Field Punishment No. 2 and forfeiture of 1 days' pay.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 17 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 23 June 1916. Found guilty of being absent without leave, 2100-2145, 26 June 1916: awarded 18 days' Field Punishment No. 2. Reverted to Pte, 6 July 1916.

Wounded in action, 19 July 1916 (gun shot wound, scalp); admitted to 30th General Hospital, Calais; transferred to No. 1 Convalescent Depot, Boulogne, 29 July 1916. Found guilty, 22 August 1916, of breaking out of camp, 6 pm, and remaining absent until apprehended by the M.P. at 9.5 pm: awarded 2 days' Field Punishment No. 2. Rejoined Bn, 23 September 1916. On leave, 29 December 1916; rejoined Bn, 17 January 1917. Found guilty of being absent without leave, 7 am, 25 April 1917, to 12 noon, 30 April 1917: awarded 18 days; Field Punishment No. 2 and forfeiture of 24 days' pay. Found guilty, Martinsart, 5 July 1917, of being out of bounds contrary to Orders, 8 pm: awarded 3 days' Field Punishment No. 2. Found guilty, 17 July 1917, of being absent from parade: awarded 7 days' Field Punishment No. 2.

Admitted to hospital, 19 July 1917; transferred to 39th General Hospital, Havre, 23 July 1917; discharged to Reinforcements, 6 October 1917; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 80 days. Rejoined Bn, 26 October 1917. On leave to England, 22 February 1918; rejoined unit from leave, 11 March 1918.

Killed in action, 16 March 1918.

Medals: 1914-18 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal

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