James Alfred PITHAM

Regimental number249
Place of birthBurnie, Tasmania
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationLabourer
AddressStanley, Tasmania
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation18
Next of kinFather, William Pitham, Stanley, Tasmania
Previous military serviceServed in the 91st Infantry, Citizen Military Forces. Prevously rejected for enlistment in the AIF: Atttestation Paper states 'reason [for rejection] unknown'.
Enlistment date4 March 1916
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll4 February 1916
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name40th Battalion, A Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/57/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Hobart, Tasmania, on board HMAT A35 Berrima on 1 July 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll51st Battalion
FateKilled in Action 10 June 1917
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
153
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Hobart, 1 July 1916; disembarked Devonport, England, 22 August 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 15 October 1916.

Allotted to and proceeded to join 51st Bn, 29 October 1916; joined Bn, in the field, 31 October 1916.

Killed in action, Belgium, 10 June 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal