Arthur Keene MILLSON

Regimental number14934
Place of birthOntario Canada
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationWharf labourer and clerk
AddressMilson's Point, New South Wales
Marital statusMarried
Age at embarkation39
Next of kinWife, Mrs. Veronica Millson, 3 Paul Street, Milson's Point, New South Wales
Enlistment date21 February 1916
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll9 February 1916
Rank on enlistmentSapper
Unit nameDivisional Signal Company 1, Reinforcement 20
AWM Embarkation Roll number22/11/4
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A47 Mashobra on 14 September 1916
Rank from Nominal RollSapper
Unit from Nominal Roll1st Divisional Signal Company
Recommendations (Medals and Awards)

Military Medal


'Courage and devotion to duty in repairing line under heavy fire, being badly wounded in the attempt.' (East of Hooge 20-21 September 1917.)
Recommendation date: 26 September 1917

FateKilled in Action 24 September 1917
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.

Panel number, Roll of Honour,
  Australian War Memorial
26
Medals

Military Medal

'During the operations east of HOOGE on 20th and 21st September, 1917, Sapper MILLSON was linesman attached to Cable Head. During a counter attack by the enemy when communication was out this Sapper volunteered to repair the line. Though badly wounded in the attempt he succeeded in the effecting of the repairs.'
Source: 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 31
Date: 7 March 1918

Other details

War service: Western Front

Medals: Military Medal, British War Medal, Victory Medal