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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Magherafelt Casualties
No     Rank Name Service No Regiment / Service Date Of Death Grave Ref
1 Portrait Pte. Anderson, William James 15292 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 12/08/1917 Panel 22
2 Pte. Brown, George 3/1474 Black Watch 26/10/1914 Panel 37
3 Pte. Cassidy, James 19048 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 09/08/1917 Panel 22
4 L/Corp Conway, Patrick 2591 Royal Irish Regiment 23/10/1916 Panel 33
5 Pte. Devine, James 4376 Royal Scots Fusiliers 05/11/1914 Panel 19 + 33.
6 Pte. Donnelly, Arthur 6450 Scots Guards 26/10/1914 Panel 11
7 Pte. Duffy, Frank 9301 Highland Light Infantry 01/11/1914 Panel 38
8 Portrait Corp Ellis, William L 4612 Royal Irish Rifles 01/09/1916 Panel 40
9 Pte. Ewing, William 19138 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 07/06/1917 Panel 22
10 R/man Flynn, William George A 18981 Royal Irish Rifles 11/08/1917 Panel 40
11 L/Corp Graham, Robert 12649 Durham Light Infantry 11/01/1916 Panel 36-38
12 Corp Hamilton, James 1293 Royal Irish Rifles 10/08/1917 Panel 40
13 Pte. Hannaway, Terrance 6644 Scots Guards 26/10/1914 Panel 11
14 Portrait Portrait R/man Lennox, Edward 40953 Royal Irish Rifles 10/08/1917 Panel 40
15 Portrait Pte. Mann, Leslie Ellis 6543 Australian Infantry 03/10/1917 Panel 7-17-23-25 - 27 - 29 - 31
16 Portrait Pte. Mawhinnie, William J 15841 Royal Scots Fusiliers 29/09/1915 Panel 19 and 33
17 Portrait Pte. McCready, Fleming 10663 Royal Irish Fusiliers 14/03/1915 Panel 42
18 Portrait Pte. Michael, Alexander 832 Australian Infantry 13/10/1917 Panel 7-17-23-25-27-29-31
19 Portrait Portrait 2nd Lieut Murphy, James Neville H Royal Dublin Fusiliers 10/05/1915 Panel 44-46
20 Pte. Park, William John 681645 Canadian Infantry 26/10/1917 Panel 18-24-26-30
21 Pte. Winton, Thomas 28045 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 07/06/1917 Panel 22
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.