The AIF Project

Ernest SELKIRK

Regimental number2572
Place of birthMinyip, Victoria
ReligionMethodist
OccupationFireman
AddressJarrahdale, Western Australia
Marital statusMarried
Age at embarkation29
Height5' 7.75"
Weight138 lbs
Next of kinWife, Mrs Mabel Kate Selkirk, Jarrahdale, Western Australia
Previous military serviceWas a member of the local Rifle Club.
Enlistment date16 August 1915
Rank on enlistmentProvisional CPL
Unit name28th Battalion, 6th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/45/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT A38 Ulysses on 2 November 1915
Rank from Nominal Roll2nd Lieutenant
Unit from Nominal Roll51st Battalion
Recommendations (Medals and Awards)

Mention in Despatches


Awarded, and promulgated, 'London Gazette', Supplement No. 30448 (28 December 1917); 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 57 (18 April 1918).

FateKilled in Action 9 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
154
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Allotted to and proceeded to join 51st Bn, Tel el Kebir, 3 March 1916. Reverted to rank of Private, 4 March 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 5 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 12 June 1916. Promoted Corporal, 17 August 1916; Temporary Sergeant, 25 September 1916.

Promoted 2nd Lieutenant, 8 February 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 9 June 1917; buried South of Wulverghem, Messines Road, just S.W. of Messines, Belgium.

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

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