The AIF Project

Joseph Daniel Penfold REED

Regimental number6623
Place of birthEmmaville, New South Wales
SchoolPublic School, New South Wales
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationStorekeeper
AddressEmmaville, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation22.5
Height5' 8.5"
Weight144 lbs
Next of kinFather, W A Reed, Irby Street, Emmaville, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date7 November 1916
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll24 October 1916
Place of enlistmentArmidale, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name17th Battalion, 19th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/34/4
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A18 Wiltshire on 7 February 1917
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll35th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Age at death from cemetery records23
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 25), 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
126
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Commemorated in Emmaville General Cemetery, New South Wales. Parents: William and Frances REED. Native of Emmaville, New South Wales
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 7 March 1917; disembarked Devonport, England, 11 April 1917, and marched into 5th Training Bn, Rollestone.

Transferred to 67th Bn, Windmill Hill, 28 April 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 23 August 1917; taken on strength, 35th Bn, in the field, 1 September 1917.

Reported missing in action, 12 October 1917.

Court of Enquiry, 15 May 1918, concluded: 'Killed in action, Belgium, 12 October 1918.'

Note on Red Cross File: 'No trace Germany. Cert. by Capt. Mills 10-10-19.'

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, REED Joseph Daniel Penfold
Red Cross File No 2260104F

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