Canadian National Vimy Memorial and provide general supervision of the foundation work. Faber had recently designed the substructure for the Menin Gate at Ypres, and he selected a design that employed cast-in-place reinforced concrete to which the facing stone would be bonded. Major Unwin Simson served as the principal Canadian engineer during the construction of the memorial and oversaw much of the daily operations at the site. Allward moved to Paris in 1925 to supervise construction and the carving of the sculptures. Construction commenced in 1925 and took eleven years to complete. The Imperial War Graves Commission concurrently employed French and British veterans to
Will Longstaff Even after leaving the military, he remained in England, eventually settling in Sussex. Beginning the late 1920s, he made return trips to the battlefields of Belgium and France and painted haunting images in a spiritualist style. Among these later works is "Menin Gate at Midnight" (1927), arguably his most famous, which depicts the ghostly figures of soldiers marching past the monument. The painting toured Australia in 1928–29. It was viewed by record crowds. The painting is housed in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. In December 2000 "Menin Gate at Midnight" left the War Memorial on loan to the National Gallery