The AIF Project

Henry Thomas WALDEN

Regimental number4625
Place of birthSt Heliers, Channel Island, Jersey
SchoolSchool in England.
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationEngineer
Address51 King Street, Newcastle, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation41
Height5' 6.5"
Weight137 lbs
Next of kinBrother, John Walden, 39 Halkett Place, St Helier, Jersey, England
Previous military serviceNil (previously rejected for enlistment on account of teeth and varicose veins)
Enlistment date6 November 1916
Place of enlistmentNewcastle, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name30th Battalion, 12th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/47/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A72 Beltana on 25 November 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll45th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Place of death or woundingFrance
Age at death41
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
140
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: John May and Sarah Mary WALDEN
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 25 November 1916; disembarked Devonport, England, 29 January 1917.

Admitted to Miltary Hospital, Fovant, 16 March 1917 (not yet diagnosed); marched into 8th Training Bn, Hurdcott, from hospital, 21 March 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 19 June 1917; taken on strength, 45th Bn, in the field, 9 July 1917.

Reported missing in action, 12 October 1917.

Now, 17 November 1917, reported 'Killed in action, Belgium 12 October 1917.'

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, WALDEN Henry Thomas

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