The AIF Project

Herbert BRADFORD

Regimental number1716
Place of birthMelbourne, Victoria
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationLabourer
Address119 Hubble Street, East Fremantle, Western Australia
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation24
Height5' 8.25"
Weight136 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs Sarah Bradford, 119 Hubble Street, East Fremantle, Western Australia
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date18 January 1915
Place of enlistmentPerth, Western Australia
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name11th Battalion, 4th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/28/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT A8 Argyllshire on 19 April 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll11th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 2 November 1917
Place of death or woundingBelgium
Age at death27.1
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 17), 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
61
Family/military connectionsBrothers: 2793B Pte George BRADFORD, 12th Bn, returned to Australia, 18 July 1919; 3066 Pte William BRADFORD, 12th Bn, returned to Australia, 21 December 1918.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Taken on strength, 4th Bn, Gallipoli, 4 June 1915.

Admitted to 2nd Field Ambulance, 31 July 1915 (diarrhoea); transferred to hospital ship to Mudros, 31 July 1915; to 1st Australian General Hospital, Heliopolis, Egypt, 4 August 1915.

Proceeded to Gallipoli, 22 August 1915; rejoined unit, 27 August 1915.

Admitted to 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station, 30 October 1915 (pyrexia); transferred to Gibraltar and admitted to General Hospital, 7 November 1915; transferred to 3rd London General Hospital, 3 January 1916; to No. 1 Command Depot from No. 2 Command Depot, 1 July 1916.

Admitted to Bulford Military Hospital, 24 June 1916; discharged, 7 September 1916; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 76 days.

Proceeded overseas to France, 29 September 1916; rejoined unit, 16 October 1916.

Admitted to 2nd Australian Field Ambulance, 30 November 1916 (influenza), and transferred to New Zealand Stationary Hospital; transferred to 1st General Hospital, Etretat, 2 December 1916; to England, 13 December 1916 and admitted to 1st Southern General Hospital, 14 December 1916. Discharged and granted furlough: marched into No. 1 Command Depot, Wareham, from furlough, 7 February 1917.

Found guilty of being absent without leave from tattoo roll call, 7 February to 9 am, 23 February 1917, and of breaking camp: awarded 17 days' Field Punishment No. 2 and forfeiture of 33 days' pay.

Declared an illegal absentee with deficiency in kit (10 pounds, 18 shillings, 2 pence) by Court of Enquiry, 10 April 1917.

Found guilty of absence without leave, 9.30 pm, 16 March, to noon, 24 March 1917: awarded 6 days' Field Punishment No. 2 and forfeiture of 20 days' pay.

Found guilty, 25 July 1917, of being absent without leave from 8 am, 23 June, to noon, 19 July 1917: awarded 28 days' Field Punishment No. 2 and forfeiture of 60 days' pay.

Proceeded overseas to France, 26 July 1917; rejoined unit, 18 August 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 2 November 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, BRADFORD Herbert

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