Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

David Gray was born at Rosevale in the Fassifern Valley south of Rosewood to James and Theresa Gray. He attended school at Rosedale with his elder brother Arthur and then probably worked on the family farm. At some time, David moved to the Biggenden district where his brother was living.
 
David took the train to Maryborough where he enlisted in the AIF on 14th November 1916. He was 33 years old and stated he was a farm labourer of Biggenden. David went into camp at Enoggera but just nine days later he was given a 5 day home leave to return to Biggenden. The journey was to take 14 hours with a change of train at Maryborough. Not long after returning from leave, David was allocated as a reinforcement for the 31st Infantry Battalion; part of the 8th Brigade of the 5th Division AIF.
 
In July of 1916, the 31st Battalion had recently arrived in France when the 5th Division was ordered into an attack with just three days experience in the trenches. The assault on the German lines at Fromelles was easily repulsed with an unsustainable casualty list. The 31st Battalion suffered 572 casualties at Fromelles, over half of the battalion’s strength. So badly mauled was the 5th Division from that one day that the division was withdrawn from all frontline duty for 14 months. Before the division could be returned to the order of battle, all of the battalions in the 5th Division needed to be heavily reinforced and provided with extensive training.
 
As a consequence of the urgent need for reinforcements, David and the rest of his cohort spent only a short time in basic training before being sent overseas, boarding the “Demosthenes” in Sydney on 23rd December 1916. David allocated 2/- of his overseas daily pay to his mother. The reinforcements disembarked in Plymouth on 3rd March 1917 and were marched in to the 8th Brigade Training Battalion at Hurdcott. David spent the next four months with the training battalion before finally being posted to France and the 31stBattalion. He was taken on strength on 1st August.
 
From May to August 1917, the battalions of the 8th Brigade were in camp at Racquinghem in Northern France, well behind the front line. The 31st Battalion war diary records that considerable time was spent conducting a court of inquiry regarding the fate of hundreds of 31st Battalion men who had been listed as missing since the battle of Fromelles 12 months previously. For most of August and the early weeks of September, the men of the 31st continued to train, go on route marches and practice manoeuvres as a brigade. During this time, the commander of the AIF; General Birdwood inspected the division and gave one of his famous rousing speeches in which he informed the men that the time for training was over and that they would soon be going back to the front.
 
In September of 1917, a new field of operations was opened by the British in Belgian Flanders. The campaign was designated the 3rd Battle of Ypres but most people referred to it as Passchendaele. The strategy was to proceed eastwards from the town of Ypres towards a ridge on which sat the villages of Zonnebeke and Passchendaele using a technique known as “bite and hold.” The first step or bite was the battle of Menin Road which was to be closely followed a second bite against Polygon Wood.
 
On 25th September, the 5th Division was included in the battle plan for Polygon Wood, the first time the men had been in battle since Fromelles. Two battalions of the 8th Brigade, the 30th and the 31st were attached to another brigade to shore up defensive positions on the first line objective. The line was subsequently held after an advance under an artillery umbrella.
 
Since taking the trench in Polygon Wood, the men of the 31st had to endure a number of German counterattacks while preparing for a further advance. On the morning on 27th September after stand down, orders were given for the infantrymen to clean their rifles prior to advancing to the second line. As Private Gilbert grabbed his rifle from the parapet to clean it, the weapon discharged. The rifle was pointed along the trench and David Gray was hit in the head by the bullet at close range. Gilbert bandaged his wounded comrade but as he informed a court of inquiry, there was nothing that could be done. The whistles blew for the advance and the 31st rose up out of the trench. David remained in the trench mortally wounded.
 
A court of inquiry found that Private Gilbert’s rifle had a defective spring in the safety catch and no blame should be apportioned to him for what was eventually classed as an accident. David’s mother received a parcel of his effects which contained a pocket book, cards and a fountain pen.
 
There is no record of a burial party locating David’s remains and it is likely that his body was covered during an artillery barrage. At the conclusion of the war, David’s name was added to the stone tablets at the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres. The Menin Gate memorial is dedicated to the 54,000 British and Dominion Troops, including over 6,000 Australians, who lost their lives in Flanders and 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.
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.