The AIF Project

Frederick Hagedom PYBUS

Regimental number150
Date of birth3 June 1891
Place of birthPort Augusta, South Australia
Other NamesFrederick Hagedorn
SchoolPort Augusta Public School, South Australia
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationPlumber
AddressPort Augusta, South Australia
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation24
Next of kinMother, Mrs Elizabeth Jane Pybus, Dulwich Avenue, opp Gurney Road, Dulwich, South Australia
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date12 January 1916
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name43rd Battalion, A Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/60/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board HMAT A19 Afric on 9 June 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll10th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 8 October 1917
Age at death from cemetery records26
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 17), 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
60
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Frederick and Eliza PYBUS. Native of Port Augusta, South Australia. Commemorated in North Road Church of England Cemetery, Adelaide, South Australia.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked from Adelaide, 9 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, France, 20 July 1916; proceeded to England for training.

Proceeded overseas to France, 16 September 1916; joined 10th Bn in the field, 2 October 1916.

Transferred to Anzac Light Railways, 12 January 1917; detached for duty as fettler, 1 April 1917. Rejoined 10th Bn from detachment, 11 June 1917.

Wounded and missing in action, Belgium, 8 October 1917.

Court of Enquiry, 16 May 1918, determined fate as 'killed in action'.

Statement by 5205 Pte C. SIMMS, 10th Bn, No. 1 Australian Dermatological Hospital, Bulford, 2 February 1918: 'I last saw No. 150 Private Pybus F.H. 10th Battalion, near Polygon Wood, Belgium, early in October 1917. He took part in the charge against the German trenches and was in my platoon. He was lying on the ground wounded. This is the last I saw of him.'

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

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