The AIF Project

Percy FABIAN

Regimental number6506
Place of birthPort Fairy, Victoria
SchoolPort Fairy State School, Victoria
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationBaker's assistant
Address18 Cowper Street, Footscray, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation18
Height5' 2.75"
Weight127 lbs
Next of kinFather, A Fabian, 18 Cowper Street, Footscray, Victoria
Previous military serviceServed for 5 months in Senior Cadets; still serving at time of AIF enlistment.
Enlistment date22 June 1916
Place of enlistmentMelbourne, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name14th Battalion, 21st Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/31/4
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A71 Nestor on 2 October 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll14th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 26 September 1917
Place of death or woundingPolygon Wood, Belgium
Age at death19.3
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
72
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Alfred and Hannah FABIAN, 18 Cowper Street, Footscray, Victoria. Native of Port Fairy, Victoria
Family/military connectionsBrother: 324 Pte William Albert FABIAN, 3rd Bn, killed in action, 16 May 1915.
Other details

War service: Western Front

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, FABIAN Percy
Red Cross File No 1030407F

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