The AIF Project

William David BLOOR

Regimental number3778
Place of birthBrisbane, Queensland
SchoolMilton State School, Queensland
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationPostman
AddressMain View Street, Milton, Brisbane, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation28
Next of kinMother, Mrs Rachael Bloor, Main View Street, Milton, Brisbane, Queensland
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date22 May 1916
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name31st Battalion, 9th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/48/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board HMAT A49 Seang Choon on 19 September 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll31st Battalion
FateKilled in Action 28 September 1917
Place of death or woundingBelgium
Age at death30
Age at death from cemetery records30
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
118
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: James Henry and Rachel BLOOR, Main Street, Milton Heights, Brisbane
Family/military connectionsBrother: 15753 Pte Edward Mervyn BLOOR, 2nd Field Ambulance, returned to Australia, 3 July 1919.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked from Brisbane, 19 September 1916; disembarked Plymouth, 9 December 1916. Marched in to 8th Training Bn, 11 December 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 16 January 1917; taken on strength, 31st Bn, 7 February 1917.

Found guilty of being absent without leave from 9 pm tattoo call, 15 July 1917, until arrested in Amiens, 10 pm, 15 July 1917: awarded 2 days' Field Punishment No. 2 and forfeiture of 2 days' pay.

To 2nd Army Rest Camp, 27 August 1917; rejoined unit, 7 September 1917.

Wounded in action, 28 September 1917; subsequently changed to killed in action, Belgium, 8 September 1917. Buried by 5th Divisional Burial Officer, just south of Chateau Wood, 1000 yards W. of Glencorse Wood, and 1500 yards N. of Shrewsbury Forest.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

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