The AIF Project

William Leo SMITH

Regimental number4315
Place of birthNelson, Victoria
SchoolChristian Brothers, Victoria (Catholic)
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationPost Office employee
Address108 Barkly Street, Carlton, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation25
Height5' 6"
Weight147 lbs
Next of kinFather, W J Smith, 108 Barkly Street, Carlton, Victoria
Enlistment date6 July 1915
Place of enlistmentMelbourne, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name6th Battalion, 13th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/23/4
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A64 Demosthenes on 29 December 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll6th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 4 October 1917
Place of death or woundingYpres, Belgium
Age at death28
Age at death from cemetery records28
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 7), 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
48
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: William and Ellen SMITH, 108 Barkly Street, Carlton, Victoria. Native of Nelson, Victoria
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Embarked Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 29 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 4 April 1916. Taken on strength, 6th Bn, 30 July 1916.

Attached for pay, rations and discipline to 1st Canadian Tunnelling Company, 23 August 1916; rejoined 6th Bn from detachment, 18 October 1916.

Admitted to 5th Australian Field Ambulance, 6 December 1916 (pyorrhoea); transferred to Anzac Corps Rest Station, 6 December 1916; discharged to duty, 21 December 1916; rejoined unit, 24 December 1916.

Proceeded on leave to United Kingdom, 3 September 1917; rejoined unit from leave, 20 September 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 4 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

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