Medal Group of Alfred Richard ULPH

‘Born 8 September 1880 St Pancras, London, Alfred Richard ULPH had served for eight years with the King’s Royal Rifles before making his way to Australia. The thirty eight year old fireman joined the newly formed AIF at Maryborough in Queensland on 25 August 1914, and, posted to the 9th Battalion, sailed with his unit to Egypt a couple of months later to continue training. As part of the 3rd Brigade, ULPH was amongst the first to land at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, serving on the peninsula until late October when he was invalided to Egypt and then England suffering from debility.
After a few months convalescing at Weymouth, ULPH returned to Egypt in late April 1916 where, as a consequence of the restructuring of the rapidly expanding AIF, he was re-allotted to the veteran cadre of the newly raised 47th Battalion, part of the 12th Brigade of the 4th Division. The unit deployed to France in June and ULPH saw action on the shell drenched battlefields of Pozieres and Mouquet Farm. On 11 September he was promoted to Corporal and spent the winter months in the cold and sodden trenches of the Somme Valley, a few miles east of Pozieres before his unit joined the advance to the Hindenburg Line in the spring of 1917. The unit fought in the disastrous first battle of Bullecourt on 11 April and then entered a four month period of rest and training as the weary men prepared for the operations to be fought in Flanders later in the year.
Corporal ULPH enjoyed a couple of weeks of leave in England in late August-September before re-joining his unit at Ypres in Belgium. On 26 September, his unit acted in reserve at the successful battle of Polygon Wood and, after a short rest, moved forward into trenches to the right of Tyne Cot for the assault on Passchendaele Ridge. The battlefield had been subjected to a week of drenching rain and, when the battalion went forward into the thick mud near the Roulers railway cutting, it was cut to pieces. Alfred ULPH died at Passchendaele. Initially posted as missing in action, a Court of Enquiry convened in March 1918, determined that he had been killed in action – he had not drawn pay since the battle and his name was not on any hospital or German POW list. His body was later recovered from the swamp and buried in the field “1000 yards southwest of Passchendaele and 1000 yards NE of Zonnebeke (at map reference) Sheet 28NE.D.18AC.D.17.BD.”’ Source: Australian War Memorial