The AIF Project

Hugh McDermott BRINDLEY

Regimental number84
Place of birthHamilton, Victoria
SchoolState School No 1260, Hotspur, Victoria
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationFarmer
AddressBalldale via Corowa, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation25
Next of kinFather, John Herbert Brindley, Balldale via Corowa, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date21 February 1916
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll22 February 1916
Place of enlistmentSeymour, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name37th Battalion, Headquarters
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/54/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A34 Persic on 3 June 1916
Rank from Nominal RollSergeant
Unit from Nominal Roll37th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Place of death or woundingPasschendaele, Ypres, Belgium
Age at death28
Age at death from cemetery records28
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 25), 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
128
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Commemorated on Memorial Plantation Hotspur Avenue of Avenue, Victoria. Commemorated on Hotspur State School No 1260 Honor Roll, Victoria. Parents: John Herbert and Sarah BRINDLEY, Balldale, New South Wales. Native of Hotspur, Victoria
Family/military connectionsBrothers: 36867 Gunner John Herbert BRINDLEY, 4th Division Ammunition Column, killed in action, 24 September 1918; 36868 Gunner William Key BRINDLEY, 4th Divisional Ammunition Column, returned to Australia, 4 July 1919; 85 Lance Corporal Thomas BRINDLEY, 38th Bn, returned to Australia, 19 June, 1919.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

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