The AIF Project

Russell Keith PASCOE

Regimental number1980
Place of birthWagga Wagga, New South Wales
SchoolMosman and Sydney High School, New South Wales
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationPhotographer
Address'Havilah', Royalist Road, Mosman, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation18
Next of kinW K Pascoe, 'Havilah', Royalist Road, Mosman, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date18 June 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name19th Battalion, 3rd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/36/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A54 Runic on 9 August 1915
Rank from Nominal RollSergeant
Unit from Nominal Roll19th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 21 September 1917
Place of death or woundingPolygon Wood, Ypres, Belgium
Age at death21
Age at death from cemetery records20
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 23), 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
89
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: William and Susie PASCOE, 'Havilah', Royalist Road, Mosman, New South Wales. Native of Wagga Wagga, New South Wales
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Taken on strength, 19th Bn, Canal Zone, 5 February 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 18 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 25 March 1916.

Wounded in action, France, 27 July 1916 (gun shot wound, scalp). Transferred to England, 30 July 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 7 October 1916; transferred to 13th Bn, 22 October 1916; to 19th Bn, 24 November 1916. Promoted Corporal, 2 March 1917.

Wounded in action, 15 April 1917 (bullet wound, neck); rejoined Bn, 2 May 1917. Promoted Sergeant, 4 July 1917. Detached to Corps Intelligence School, 25 August 1917; rejoined Bn, 14 September 1917.

Killed in action, 21 September 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal

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