The AIF Project

Frank CHIVERTON

Regimental number2355
Place of birthHackwell, London, England
SchoolPublic School, Queensland
Age on arrival in Australia7
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationStation hand
AddressHughenden, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation21
Next of kinBrother, J G Chiverton, Bush Inn, Ovington
Previous military serviceNone
Enlistment date20 May 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name9th Battalion, 7th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/26/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A9 Shropshire on 20 August 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll1st Machine Gun Battalion
FateKilled in Action 26 September 1917
Place of death or woundingSomme, France
Age at death24
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 31), 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
177
Other details

War service: joined 9th Bn at Mudros, 18 November 1915. Disembarked Alexandria, 4 January 1915 (general Gallipoli evacuation). Transferred to 49th Bn, 25 February 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 5 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 12 June 1916. Attached to 13th Machine Gun Company, 28 July 1916; transferred to 13th Machine Gun Company, 1 November 1916. On leave to England, 21 December 1916. Sick while on leave, 4 January 1917 (hernia), and admitted to 1st Auxiliary Hospital, Harefield; discharged to No. 2 Command Depot, Weymouth, 16 February 1917. Marched into Machine Gun Training Depot, Grantham, 6 May 1917. Proceeded overseas to France, 5 June 1917; rejoined unit, 16 June 1917.

Killed in action, 26 September 1917.

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

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