The AIF Project

Jack Thomas NEUGENT

Regimental number2707
Place of birthBarcaldine, Queensland
Other NamesKINCHINGTON, Thomas John
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationSteward
AddressBrisbane, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation24
Next of kinMother, Mrs Nellie Kinchington, 16 Waverly Street, Bondi Junction, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date28 August 1916
Place of enlistmentBrisbane, Queensland
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name49th Battalion, 6th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/66/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A40 Ceramic on 7 October 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll49th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 26 September 1917
Age at death from cemetery records24
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 29), 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
148
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Son of Ellen KINCHINGTON, Denham Street, Bondi, New South Wales
Family/military connectionsBrothers: [2623] Lt Patrick KINCHINGTON MM, 3rd Bn, returned to Australia, 9 February 1919; 6823 Pte Vincent KINCHINGTON, 3rd Bn, returned to Australia, 1 August 1919; 2875 Pte Robert Emmett KINCHINGTON, 1st Pioneer Bn, died of disease, 6 February 1919.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked from Sydney, 7 October 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 21 November 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 9 May 1917.

Wounded in action, 7 June 1917 (gun shot wound, shoulder); admitted to 47th General Hospital, Le Treport, 8 June 1917; rejoined unit, 31 July 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 26 September 1917. Buried 600 yards due south of Zonnebeke; grave destroyed in subsequent fighting.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

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