Charles Henry LINKLATER

ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationWool merchant
Address'Edington', Giollies Street, Woolstonecraft, New South Wales
Marital statusMarried
Age at embarkation32
Next of kinWife, Mrs D Linklater, 'Edington', Giollies Street, Woolstonecraft, New South Wales
Enlistment date16 December 1914
Rank on enlistmentCaptain
Unit name33rd Battalion, C Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/50/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A74 Marathon on 4 May 1916
Rank from Nominal RollCaptain
Unit from Nominal Roll4th Battalion
Recommendations (Medals and Awards)

Mention in Despatches


Awarded, and promulgated, 'London Gazette', second Supplement, No. 30107, 1 June 1917; 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 169, 4 October 1917.
Recommendation date: 4 June 1917

Military Cross


Recommendation date: 14 June 1917

Military Cross

FateKilled in Action 11 June 1917
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 25), 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
122
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Charles and Mary LINKLATER; husband of D. LINKLATER, "Chaceby", Victoria Street, Ashfield, New South Wales. Native of Glenfield, New South Wales
Medals

Military Cross

''For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He displayed great courage and splendid leadership on all occasions, keeping his men in high spirits in spite of heavy losses, and inspiring them with the greatest confidence. He showed marked ability in consolidating the line and in establishing and maintaining advance posts.''
Source: 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 219
Date: 20 December 1917

Other details

War service: Western Front

Note, Red Cross File No 1610306: 'Reported Died. Cert. by German Death List dated 7.8.17.'

Note on file: 'Disc received from Germany and forwarded to next of kin 20.6.17. Cert. by Kit Stores. 1.9.19.'

Medals: Military Cross, British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesRed Cross File No 1610306