The AIF Project

Richard John Joseph RODWELL

Regimental number918
Place of birthMorwell, Victoria
ReligionMethodist
OccupationLabourer
AddressTongala, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation18
Next of kinFather, R Rodwell, Tongala, Victoria
Previous military serviceServed in the Senior School Cadets for 6 months.
Enlistment date7 July 1915
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll17 February 1916
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name29th Battalion, C Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/46/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A11 Ascanius on 10 November 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll29th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 26 September 1917
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
116
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Richard and Margaret RODWELL, Leongatha, Victoria. Native of Morwell, Victoria
Family/military connectionsFather: 475 Pte Richard John Joseph RODWELL, 6th Bn, returned to Australia, 1 November 1917.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Disembarked Suez, 7 December 1915.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 16 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 23 March 1916.

On leave, 10 May 1917; rejoined Bn from leave, 23 May 1917.

Killed in action, 26-27 September 1917.

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

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