The AIF Project

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.

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Embarked from Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (Gallipoli), 27 October 1915. Admitted to 4th Auxiliary Hospital, Abbassia, Egypt, 22 December 1915 (cerebro spinal meningitis: dangerously ill); listed as out of danger, 11 January 1916. Commenced return to Australia from Suez on board 'Argylshire', 3 March 1916; arrived Melbourne, 30 March 1916.

Re-embarked from Melbourne on board HMAT A9 'Shropshire', 11 May 1917, as R3302 Gunner, Field Artillery Brigade, February 1917 Reinforcements; disembarked Plymouth, England, 19 July 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 11 September 1917; taken on strength, 4th Divisional Ammunition Column, 17 September 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 22 September 1917.

Statement by 33756 Driver C.H. POLLOCK: 'On the day of the death of Gunner ELLIOTT, Gunner ELLIOTT and myself and a party were engaged in supplying ammunition to a battery. When in the vicinity of BELLEWARD LAKE the convoy was under heavy shell fire and Gunner ELLIOTT was struck in the head by a piece of H.E. and was badly wounded. He was immediately carried to a dressing station, which fortunately was near by, where he received immediate attention. I was with him at the time of his death which took place about an hour after receiving the wound. To the best of my belief, he was buried in a military Cemetery just outside the Dressing Station. The Dressing Station was situated about two hundred yards north of BELLEWARD LAKE.'

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