The AIF Project

Leslie Francis BRAITHWAITE

Regimental number642
Place of birthSale, Cheshire, England
SchoolSt Anne's School, Sale, Cheshire, England
Age on arrival in Australia21
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationSalesman
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation25
Next of kinFather, Charles Braithwaite, 99 Nothonden Road, Sale, Manchester, England
Previous military serviceNil
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll1 October 1914
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name16th Battalion, A Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/33/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A40 Ceramic on 22 December 1914
Rank from Nominal RollWarrant Officer (Class II)
Unit from Nominal Roll16th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 June 1917
Place of death or woundingMessines, Belgium
Age at death26
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
78
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Proceeded to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 12 April 1915. Promoted Company Quarter-Master Sergeant, 24 April 1915. Disembarked Alexandria ex Mudros, 30 December 1915 (general Gallipoli evacuation).

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 1 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 9 June 1916.

Admitted to 36th Casualty Clearing Station, 15 November 1916; transferred to No. 1 Stationary Hospital, Rouen, 16 November 1916; to 51st General Hospital, 21 November 1916; discharged to Base Details, 3 January 1917; total period of treatment for venereal disease: 50 days. Rejoined unit, 23 January 1917. Promoted Temporary Company Sergeant Major, 12 April 1917.

Killed in action, 12 June 1917.

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

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