ALBERT JAMES BALAAM
Regimental number
503
Place of birth
Bury St Edmunds England
Religion
Church of England
Occupation
Gardener
Address
Riana South, Tasmania
Marital status
Single
Age at embarkation
24
Next of kin
Father, George Balaam, High Street, Ixworth, Suffolk, England
Enlistment date
25 July 1916
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll
10 August 1916
Rank on enlistment
Private
Unit name
Machine Gun Company 6, Reinforcement 8
AWM Embarkation Roll number
24/11/3
Embarkation details
Unit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A7 Medic on 16 December 1916
Rank from Nominal Roll
Private
Unit from Nominal Roll
4th Machine Gun Battalion
Fate
Killed in Action 1 October 1917
Age at death from cemetery records
24
Place of burial
No known grave
Commemoration details
The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 23), 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 Tuly 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.
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records
Parents: George and Sarah Balaam, High Street, Ixworth, Suffolk, England
Biography
Remembering today and every day, Pte Albert James Balaam 24th Australian Machine Gun Company.
One of eight children, Albert was born on 20 March 1892 to George and Sarah Balaam of Ixworth, Suffolk.
When he was 21, Albert along with two other Ixworth lads emigrated to Australia on the S.S. "Ballarat" arriving in Melbourne, January 1913.
He travelled to Tasmania to live with his aunt and uncle, Stephen and Louisa Clarke (née Balaam), my Great Grandparents, the first settlers in South Riana, Northwestern Tasmania.
Albert enlisted in Penguin on 10 August 1916 and underwent training in Claremont Tasmania, Langwarrin and Seymour, Victoria before sailing from Melbourne on HMAT A7 "Medic" with the 8th Reinforcements 6th M.G. Coy, disembarking in Plymouth on 18 February 1917.
After undertaking further training at Grantham and Belton Park, Albert proceeded to France from Southampton on 7 September 1917 as part of the 24th Australian M.G. Coy.
It is not known if Albert was able to visit his family whilst training in England; he had not seen them for four years.
Albert was Killed in Action on 01 October 1917; according to the Unit War Diary, on that day the 24th Aus M.G. Coy was positioned in the Westhoek Sector between Zonnebeke and Polygon Wood.
Lt Birmingham of the same Company wrote " His loss will be keenly felt in the Company…….he was well liked"
Albert has no known grave and is remembered on the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres.
He is also remembered on Memorials in Tasmania, the Australian War Memorial and in his home town of Ixworth, Suffolk.
Lest We Forget