The AIF Project

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.

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Taken on strength, 6th Bn, Tel el Kebir, 7 January 1916. Transferred to 58th Bn, Serapeum, 17 February 1916.

Embarked from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 17 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 23 June 1916.

Wounded in action, 16 July 1916; admitted to No. 1 Australian Casualty Clearing Station, 16 July 1916 (gun shot wound, chest); transferred by Ambulance Train to 35th General Hospital, Calais, 18 July 1916; to England, 20 July 1916, and admitted to 2nd Western General Hospital, Manchester, 21 July 1916 (shrapnel wound, chest: slight); discharged to report to No. 1 Command Depot, Perham Downs on 13 September 1916. Proceeded overseas to France, 11 November 1916; rejoined unit, 1 December 1916.

Admitted to Anzac Corps Rest Station, 30 January 1917; transferred to 8th Field Ambulance; to 45th Casualty Clearing Station, 4 February 1917 (bronchitis and pyrexia, unknown origin); transferred by Ambulance Train and admitted to 10th General Hospital, Rouen, 7 February 1917; to England, 23 February 1917, and admitted to 3rd Australian General Hospital, Brighton (pyrexia: severe); to 3rd Auxiliary Hospital, 13 March 1917; granted furlough, 23 April 1917, to report to No. 1 Command Depot, Perham Downs, 8 May 1917. Reported absent without leave, 8 May 1917; found guilty, 21 May 1917, of being absent without leave from 3.30 pm, 8 May, to 10.30 pm, 17 May 1917: awarded 8 days' Field Punishment No. 2; forfeited 21 days' pay. Proceeded overseas to France, 15 June 1917; rejoined Bn, 9 July 1917.

Admitted to 15th Australian Field Ambulance, 28 July 1917 (tonsilitis); transferred to 56th Casualty Clearing Station, 29 July 1917; discharged to duty, 6 August 1917; rejoined Bn, 10 August 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 24 September 1917.

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