Regimental number | 929 |
Place of birth | Buln Buln, Gippsland, Victoria |
School | State School, Victoria |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Grocer |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 21 |
Next of kin | Father, J J Underwood, Warburton Road, East Camberwell, Melbourne, Victoria |
Previous military service | Served in the Cadets and Citizen Military Forces. |
Enlistment date | |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 22nd Battalion, D Company |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/39/1 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A38 Ulysses on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Lance Corporal |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 22nd Battalion |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Age at death | 23 |
Age at death from cemetery records | 23 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 23), 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 | 98 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Parents: James Joseph and Helen Mary UNDERWOOD, 12 Warburton Road,Camberwell, Victoria. Native of Melbourne |
Family/military connections | Brothers: 2509 Pte Charles Edward UNDERWOOD, 5th Machine Gun Bn, returned to Australia, 8 August 1919; 27524 Driver James Augustine UNDERWOOD, 6th Field Artillery Brigade, returned to Australia, 4 June 1919. |
Other details |
War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front Appointed Lance Corporal, 26 August 1915. Proceeded from Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (Gallipoli), 30 August 1915. Disembarked Alexandria from Mudros, 27 December 1915 (general Gallipoli evacuation). Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 19 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 26 March 1916. Admitted to 7th Field Ambulance, 11 May 1916 (venereal disease), and transferred to 8th Casualty Clearing Station. Transferred to 26th General Hospital, Etaples, 13 May 1916; to No. 9 Stationary Hospital, 14 May 1916; to 18th General Hospital, Camiers, 29 June 1916; to 2nd Australian Divisional Base Depot, Etaples, 2 July 1916; rejoined Bn, 31 July 1916. Admitted to 38th Casualty Clearing Station, 10 November 1916 (trench feet); transferred to 12th General Hospital, Rouen, 12 November 1916; to England, 20 November 1916, and admitted to No. 3 Australian General Hospital. Transferred to 3rd Auxiliary Hospital, Dartford, 30 November 1916; discharged, 27 December 1916; marched in to No. 1 Command Depot, Perham Downs, 28 December 1916. Proceeded overseas to France, 16 February 1917; rejoined Bn, 25 March 1917. Killed in action, 4 October 1917. Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal ~ |