The AIF Project

Sydney Robert THOMPSON

Regimental number2756
Place of birthCossack, Western Australia
ReligionMethodist
OccupationBank Officer
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation19
Height5' 10"
Weight140 lbs
Next of kinMother, Annie Thompson, Kathleen Street, Cottesloe, Western Australia
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll22 May 1916
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name48th Battalion, 6th Reinforcement
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT Port Melbourne on 30 October 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll48th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Age at death from cemetery records21
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 27), 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
147
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Andrew Stonehouse and Annie THOMPSON. Native of Western Australia
Family/military connectionsBrother: 7080 Pte Henry Thomas THOMPSON, 16th Bn, killed in action, 6 August 1917.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked from Fremantle, 30 October 1916; disembarked Devonport, England, 28 December 1916. Admitted to ship's hospital at sea, 13 December 1916; discharged from hospital, 15 December 1916 (no details recorded). Admitted to Military Hospital, Codford, 22 February 1917; discharged, 22 February 1917 (no details recorded).

Found guilty, 11 June 1917, of being absent without leave, midnight, 9 June, to 9 pm, 10 June: awarded 3 days' Field Punishment No. 2 and forfeited 4 days' pay.

Proceeded overseas to France, 25 June 1917; taken on strength, 48th Bn, 27 July 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 12 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

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