Friends of the Somme - Mid Ulster Branch
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Menin Gate
Belgium
Location
Region : Ypres (Ieper), West-Vlaanderen, Belgium
Latitude : 50.85218
Lontitude : 2.891035
CWGC Link : 91800
Ypres (now Ieper) is a town in the Province of West Flanders. The Memorial is situated at the eastern side of the town on the road to Menin (Menen) and Courtrai (Kortrijk). Each night at 8 pm the traffic is stopped at the Menin Gate while members of the local Fire Brigade sound the Last Post in the roadway under the Memorial's arches.

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Dungannon Casualties
No     Rank Name Service No Regiment / Service Date Of Death Grave Ref
1 Pte. Armstrong, Thomas 1200 Irish Guards 06/11/1914 Panel 11
2 Portrait Pte. Arthurs, James M 19682 Royal Canadian Regiment 26/04/1915 Panel 24-28-30
3 Portrait Sgt. Bell, Richard 410683 Canadian Infantry 30/10/1917 Panel 10-18-26-28.
4 L/Corp Busby, Isaac 870 Royal Irish Rifles 15/08/1917 Panel 40
5 Pte. Connor, William 23718 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 09/08/1916 Panel 22
6 Portrait R/man Cotter, William 5849 Royal Irish Rifles 16/06/1915 Panel 40
7 Portrait Pte. Daly (aka Hart), James (aka Jack) 1562 Australian Infantry 27/09/1917 Panel 7-17-23 - 25 - 27-29-31
8 Pte. Donnelly, Patrick 11602 Royal Dublin Fusiliers 26/04/1915 Panel 44-46
9 Pte. Donnelly, Joseph 9563 Royal Dublin Fusiliers 24/05/1915 Panel 44-46
10 Portrait Pte. Glass, William Patrick 10959 Canadian Infantry 08/07/1916 Panel 18-24-26-30
11 Pte. Haggerty, Matthew 22162 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 07/06/1917 Panel 42
12 Portrait Portrait Pte. Johnston, James Hogarth 29230 Canadian Infantry 23/04/1915 Panel 24-26-28-30
13 L/Corp Madden (aka Campbell), Francis 9973 Royal Irish Fusiliers 14/03/1915 Panel 42
14 Pte. McGerr, Thomas 5906 Royal Irish Fusiliers 04/05/1915 Panel 42
15 Pte. McLaughlin, John 9740 Royal Irish Fusiliers 05/02/1915 Panel 42
16 Portrait Corp Oliver, Ernest 472017 Canadian Infantry 13/06/1916 Panel 24-26-28-30
17 Pte. Ormsby, John James 2050 Irish Guards 01/11/1914 Panel 11
18 L/Corp Rose, John Henry 3753 Rifle Brigade 02/05/1915 Panel 46-48 +50
19 Portrait Pte. Sloan, William 21205 6th Innishkilling Dragoons 06/11/1914 Panel 5
20 Pte. Telford, William John 18140 York & Lancaster Regiment 08/05/1915 Panel 36 & 55
21 Portrait Pte. Toner, John 9552 Royal Dublin Fusiliers 24/05/1915 Panel 44-46
Cemetery History
The Menin Gate is one of four memorials to the missing in Belgian Flanders which cover the area known as the Ypres Salient. Broadly speaking, the Salient stretched from Langemarck in the north to the northern edge in Ploegsteert Wood in the south, but it varied in area and shape throughout the war.
The Salient was formed during the First Battle of Ypres in October and November 1914, when a small British Expeditionary Force succeeded in securing the town before the onset of winter, pushing the German forces back to the Passchendaele Ridge.
The Second Battle of Ypres began in April 1915 when the Germans released poison gas into the Allied lines north of Ypres. This was the first time gas had been used by either side.The violence of the attack forced an Allied withdrawal and a shortening of the line of defence.
There was little more significant activity on this front until 1917, when in the Third Battle of Ypres an offensive was mounted by Commonwealth forces to divert German attention from a weakened French front further south. The initial attempt in June to dislodge the Germans from the Messines Ridge was a complete success, but the main assault north-eastward, which began at the end of July, quickly became a dogged struggle against determined opposition and the rapidly deteriorating weather.
The campaign finally came to a close in November with the capture of Passchendaele. The German offensive of March 1918 met with some initial success, but was eventually checked and repulsed in a combined effort by the Allies in September.
The battles of the Ypres Salient claimed many lives on both sides and it quickly became clear that the commemoration of members of the Commonwealth forces with no known grave would have to be divided between several different sites.
The site of the Menin Gate was chosen because of the hundreds of thousands of men who passed through it on their way to the battlefields. It commemorates those of all Commonwealth nations, except New Zealand, who died in the Salient, in the case of United Kingdom casualties before 16 August 1917 (with some exceptions).
Those United Kingdom and New Zealand servicemen who died after that date are named on the memorial at Tyne Cot, a site which marks the furthest point reached by Commonwealth forces in Belgium until nearly the end of the war.
Other New Zealand casualties are commemorated on memorials at Buttes New British Cemetery and Messines Ridge British Cemetery.
The YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL now bears the names of more than 54,000 officers and men whose graves are not known. The memorial, designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield with sculpture by Sir William Reid-Dick, was unveiled by Lord Plumer on 24 July 1927.