Regimental number | 6634 |
Place of birth | Toowoomba, Queensland |
School | Hindmarsh State School,South Australia |
Religion | Congregational |
Occupation | Clerk |
Address | Hindmarsh, South Australia |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 25 |
Next of kin | Mother, Mrs C Sim, Bacon Street, Hindmarsh, South Australia |
Enlistment date | |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 27th Battalion, 19th Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/44/5 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board HMAT A28 Miltiades on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 50th Battalion |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Place of death or wounding | Passchendaele, Ypres, Belgium |
Age at death | 26 |
Age at death from cemetery records | 26 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The 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 | 151 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Commemorated on Clarkson Ltd Roll of Honor (design commissioned but never made): watercolour painting now held in the State Archives of South Australia. The Roll takes the form of a stained glass window headed 'The Great War 1914-1919', with a dedication: 'In Memory of Employees of CLARKSON Ltd who fell in the Great War and in honour of those who left Australia to serve with the Australian Imperial Forces.' The Roll of names is surrounded by scrolls listing major battles, most of which are misspelled: Courtenay's Post, Passchendael, Bullencourt, Poziers, Villers Brettonneux. Parents: George and Christina SIM 5 Bond Street, West Hindmarsh, South Australia |
Family/military connections | Brother: 6334 Pte Arthur John SIM, 50th Bn, killed in action, 18 October 1917. |
Other details |
War service: Western Front Statement, Red Cross File No 2500306G, 1346 Pte H.C. HARPER, D Company, 50th Bn, 20 January 1918: 'The two brothers Simms [sic] were killed outright on the night about 18.10.17. by gas shell landing in their dug-out. I helped to dig them out and bury them together at Broodsiende [sic] Ridge within a few yards of where they fell. Cross was erected with names and particulars on.' Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal |
Sources | Red Cross File No 2500306G |