John McINTYRE

Regimental number4236
Place of birthPrahran, Victoria
SchoolMalvern Grammar School, Victoria
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationClerk
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation25
Height5' 8.75"
Weight161 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs C McIntyre, 97 Glenhuntly Road, Elwood, Victoria
Enlistment date22 February 1915
Rank on enlistmentDriver
Unit nameField Artillery Brigade 2, Reinforcement 5
AWM Embarkation Roll number13/30/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A41 Forty-One on 14 May 1915
Rank from Nominal RollGunner
Unit from Nominal Roll2nd Field Artillery Brigade
FateKilled in Action 16 August 1917
Age at death from cemetery records27
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.

Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: John and Clementina McIntyre, 'Inverkeith', 80, Hawthorn Road, Caulfield, Victoria
Family/military connectionsBrother-in-law: 3205 Corporal Alexander Warwick McKINLEY, 60th Bn, killed in action, 27 September 1917.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Joined Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 21 July 1915.

Disembarked Alexandria, 27 December 1915 (general Gallipoli evacuation).

Mustered as Gunner, Tel el Kebir, 17 January 1916.

Embarked Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 22 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, France, 28 March 1916.

On leave to United Kingdom, 7 July 1917; rejoined unit from leave, 20 July 1917.

Reported missing, Belgium, believed killed in action, 16 August 1917.

Handwritten notation on Form B103: 'Buried on top of Ridge North of Glencorse Wood by Remains of German Pill Box 3¼ mls East of Ypres.' Grave subsequently lost.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, McINTYRE John