Regimental number | 6239 |
Place of birth | Hamilton, Victoria |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Boundary rider |
Address | Lonsdale Street, Hamilton, Victoria |
Marital status | Married |
Age at embarkation | 26 |
Height | 5' 6.5" |
Weight | 135 lbs |
Next of kin | Mother, A Davies, Lonsdale Street, Hamilton, Victoria |
Previous military service | Nil |
Enlistment date | |
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll | |
Place of enlistment | Melbourne, Victoria |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 5th Battalion, 20th Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/22/3 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A14 Euripides on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 5th Battalion |
Other details from Roll of Honour Circular | Boundary Rider. Enlisted 22nd April, 1916. Posted to 5th Bn, 20th Reinforcements. Taken on strength, 5th Bn, 22nd December, 1916. (Details from Brother) |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Place of death or wounding | Broodseinde, Passchendaele, Belgium |
Age at death | 28 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The 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 | 43 |
Other details |
War service: Western Front Embarked Melbourne, 11 September 1916; disembarked Plymouth, England, 26 October 1916. Proceeded overseas to France, 13 December 1916; taken on strength, 5th Bn, 22 December 1916. Admitted to 1st Field Ambulance, 3 March 1917 (dermatitis), and transferred same day to 1st Divisional Rest Station; discharged to unit, 23 March 1917; rejoined unit, 25 March 1917. Killed in action, Belgium, 4 October 1917. Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal Base Records wrote to his sister, Miss F. Davies, 16 March 1925: ' ... it must be reluctantly concluded that the search parties have not succeeded in locating ... the late soldier's place of burial ... It is noted according to a previous report received in this connection that the late soldier's grave was situated about .25 of a mile distant from GARTER POINT, and 1000 yards South of ZONNEBEKE, and it can only be presumed that the original surface markings were obliterated by shell fire thus rendering identification impossible.' |