Regimental number | 2635 |
Place of birth | Dulwich Hill, Sydney, New South Wales |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Salesman |
Address | 9 Church Street, Newtown, New South Wales |
Marital status | Married |
Age at embarkation | 20 |
Height | 5' 7.5" |
Weight | 124 lbs |
Next of kin | Wife, Mrs Maisee Ottewill, 9 Church Street, Newtown, New South Wales |
Previous military service | Served for 2 years in the 33rd Infantry, Citizen Military Forces; 'not discharged'. |
Enlistment date | |
Place of enlistment | Liverpool, New South Wales |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 1st Battalion, 8th Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/18/2 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A54 Runic on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 1st Battalion |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Place of death or wounding | Belgium |
Age at death | 22 |
Age at death from cemetery records | 22 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The 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 | 30 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Parents: Herbert Samuel OTTEWILL and Louise May STALLIBRASS, his wife; husband of Maisie OTTEWILL, 13 Frazer Road, Lewisham, New South Wales |
Family/military connections | Brother: 1739 Pte Herbert Edward OTTEWILL, 18th Bn, returned to Australia, 30 June 1918; Brother-in-law: 6067 Pte Robert PARIS, 4th Bn, killed in action, 5 May 1917. |
Other details |
War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front Embarked Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, 18 October 1915; joined 1st Bn, as Private, Gallipoli, 4 November 1915. Admitted to 87th Field Ambulance, Mudros, 18 December 1915 (influenza); rejoined Bn, Mudros, 24 December 1915. Disembarked Alexandria, 28 December 1915 (general Gallipoli evacuation). Embarked Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 22 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, France, 28 March 1916. Wounded in action, 5 November 1916 (gun shot wound, right leg); admitted to 16th Casualty Clearing Station, 6 November 1916; transferred to Ambulance Train No 3, 7 November 1916, and admitted to 4th General Hospital, Camiers; transferred to England, 12 November 1916, and admitted to 1st Southern General Hospital (bomb wound, right leg); discharged on furlough, 23 April 1917, to report to Training Depot, Perham Downs, 8 May 1917. Found guilty, Perham Downs, 11 May 1917, of being absent without leave from 3.30 pm, 8 May, till 7 pm, 10 May 1917: awarded 5 days' confined to camp, and forfeited 3 days' pay under Royal Warrant. Transferred to 61st Bn, Wareham, 25 May 1917. Proceeded overseas to France from Training Bn, Perham Downs, 1 September 1917; rejoined 1st Bn, in the field, 11 September 1917. Killed in action, Belgium, 2-5 October 1917. |
Sources | NAA: B2455, OTTEWILL Frederick Edmund |