Michael COUGHLIN

Regimental number4162
Place of birthBalmain, New South Wales
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationLabourer
Address5 Hancock Street, Rozelle, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation28
Next of kinSister, Mrs M Coughlin, 5 Hancock Street, Rozelle, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date29 July 1915
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll23 July 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name4th Battalion, 13th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/21/4
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A60 Aeneas on 20 December 1915
Regimental number from Nominal Roll4162A
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll2nd Battalion
FateKilled in Action 4 October 1917
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 7), 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
32
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Allotted to and joined 2nd Bn, Tel el Kebir, 14 February 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 22 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 28 March 1916. Found guilty of disobeying orders, 9 May 1916: awarded 7 days' Field Punishment No. 2.

Admitted to 1st Field Ambulance, 26 February 1917 (pyrexia, unknown origin); transferred to Divisional Rest Station; admitted to 7th Canadian General Hospital, Le Treport, 5 March 1917 (influenza and trench feet). Transferred to England, 9 March 1917; admitted to 3rd London General Hospital, Wansdworth, 10 March 1917. Transferred to 3rd Auxiliary Hospital, Dartford, 18 April 1917; discharged to No. 2 Command Depot, Weymouth, 7 May 1917. Marched out to Draft Depot, 7 June 1917; proceeded overseas to France, 5 July 1917; rejoined Bn, 25 September 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 4 October 1917. Buried at Jabber Creek; grave subsequently lost

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal