The AIF Project

Edward DOHERTY

Regimental number2186
Place of birthDublin, Ireland
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationShearer
AddressPerth, Western Australia
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation25
Height5' 9.5"
Weight170 lbs
Next of kinCousin, Mrs Lilian Sugg, Leake Street, Bayswater, Western Australia
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date17 January 1916
Place of enlistmentBlackboy Hill, Western Australia
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name44th Battalion, 3rd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/61/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT A23 Suffolk on 10 October 1916
Regimental number from Nominal Roll2186A
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll44th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 8 June 1917
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 27), 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
137
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Town. Bayswater, Western Australia
Other details

Enlisted, 7 January 1916. Court of Enquiry, Military Camp, Claremont, Western Australia, 7 April 1916, found that he had illegally absented himself without leave at Claremont Camp on 11 February 1916, that he was still so absent, and that on 4 April 1916 he was deficient, and that he was still deficient of a number of articles of clothing and footwear; ordered to be struck off strength ('not likely to become an efficient soldier').

War service: Western Front

Embarked Fremantle, 10 October 1917; disembarked Plymouth, England, 2 December 1916. Found guilty, 15 December 1916, of (1) being absent without leave from 6.45 am, 15 December, to 8 pm, 27 December 1916; (2) being in possession of a falsified pass: awarded 28 days' detention; forfeited a total of 45 days' pay.

Proceeded overseas to France, 4 February 1917; taken on strength, 44th Bn, 8 February 1917.

Admitted to 11th Australian Field Ambulance, 3 March 1917 (pleurisy); discharged to duty, 6 March 1917.

Found guilty, 30 April 1917, of when on Active Service absenting himself without leave in that he failed to appear at the place of parade appointed by his C.O. 25.4.17. Drunkenness, in that he on 27.4.17, having been previously warned for duty, was drunk: awarded 14 days' Field Punishment No 2; forfeited #3.10.0

Killed in action, 8 June 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, DOHERTY Edward

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