The AIF Project

Hugh Pullar CAMERON

Regimental number2603
Place of birthPrincetown, Victoria
SchoolBurrupa State School, Victoria
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationFarmer
AddressPrincetown, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation24
Next of kinFather, Peter Cameron, Princetown, Victoria
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date2 August 1915
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll30 July 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name24th Battalion, 6th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/41/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A38 Ulysses on 27 October 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll58th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 25 September 1917
Place of death or woundingPolygon Wood, Belgium
Age at death27
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 29), 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
165
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents; Peter and Ruth Isabella CAMERON. Native of Princetown, Victoria
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Taken on strength, 58th Bn, Ferry Post, Egypt, 20 April 1916.

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

Wounded in action, 26 November 1916 (gun shot wound, right arm and neck); admitted to 11th Stationary Hospital, Rouen, 29 November 1916; transferred to England, 5 December 1916, and admitted to 2nd Birmingham War Hospital, Northfield. Transferred to 3rd Auxiliary Hospital, Dartford, 9 February 1917; granted furlough, 4 May 1917, to report to No. 1 Command Depot, Perham Downs, 19 May 1917. Proceeded overseas to France, 28 June 1917; rejoined unit, 20 July 1917.

Killed in action, 25 September 1917.

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

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