The AIF Project

Frederick Herbert DOUST

Regimental number22
Place of birthGlen Innes, New South Wales
SchoolDistrict School
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationShop assistant
AddressGlen Innes, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation21
Next of kinFather, F A Doust, Glen Innes, New South Wales
Enlistment date18 September 1914
Place of enlistmentRosebery Park, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name13th Battalion, A Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/30/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board Transport A38 Ulysses on 22 December 1914
Regimental number from Nominal RollCommissioned
Rank from Nominal RollLieutenant
Unit from Nominal Roll13th Battalion
Recommendations (Medals and Awards)

Military Cross


Recommendation date: 30 August 1917

FateKilled in Action 26 September 1917
Place of death or woundingPolygon Wood, Ypres, Belgium
Age at death24
Age at death from cemetery records24
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 17), 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
69
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Frederick Alfred Albert and Annie Eliza DOUST (nee HEYDON), Glen Innes, New South Wales
Medals

Military Cross

'For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. Whilst leading reinforcements to the front line he was severely wounded by enemy shell fire. In spite of this, however, he guided his men to cover, and when shelling stopped again led them forward to the trenches, handed them over to his company commander, and then collapsed from loss of blood. No praise can be too great for his pluck and devotion to duty.' (Since deceased)'
Source: 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 110
Date: 25 July 1918

Family/military connectionsBrother: [1281] Lt Harold DOUST MC, 30th Bn, killed in action. 30 September 1918.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

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

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