The AIF Project

Henry Charles Dight CADELL

Place of birthGayndah, Queensland
SchoolBrisbane Grammar School, Queensland
Other trainingSydney Technical College, New South Wales
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationElectrical engineer
AddressHarnsley PO, Harnsley, New South Wales
Marital statusMarried
Age at embarkation40
Height5' 11"
Weight176 lbs
Next of kinWife, Mrs Constance C Caddell, Harnsley PO, Harnsley, New South Wales
Previous military serviceServed for 18 months in the Transvaal Mounted Rifles; 1 year 9 months in the 39th Field Company, Australian Engineers.; Served in Field Coy 39th Engineers, Fort Scratchley, Newcastle, as 2nd Lt.
Enlistment date7 March 1916
Rank on enlistmentLieutenant
Unit name35th Battalion, B Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/52/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A24 Benalla on 1 May 1916
Rank from Nominal RollCaptain
Unit from Nominal Roll35th Battalion
Recommendations (Medals and Awards)

Military Cross


Recommendation date: 2 October 1917

FateKilled in Action 13 October 1917
Place of death or woundingPasschendaele, Ypres, Belgium
Age at death41
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
125
Medals

Military Cross


Source: 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 57
Date: 18 April 1918

Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 1 May 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 9 July 1916. Promoted Captain, 1 August 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 21 November 1916.

Admitted to 9th Field Ambulance, 12 December 1916 (influenza), and transferred same day to 2nd Casualty Clearing Station; discharged to duty, 17 December 1916; rejoined unit, 19 December 1916.

Appointed to temporarily command 'A' Company, 35th Bn, in place of Major Seddon, wounded, 5 January 1917.

Admitted to 2nd Anzac Officers' Rest Home, 6 August 1917; discharged to duty, 13 August 1917.

Extract from 3rd Division Routine Orders: 'The Major General Commanding the division brings to notice this Officer. During an enemy attack, by skilful handling of the situation and by maintaining the enthusiasm and fighting spirit of his men was largely responsible for the successful repulse of the enemy.'

Awarded Military Cross.

Killed in action, Belgium, 12 October 1917.

Medals: Military Cross, British War Medal, Victory Medal

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