REID, Ronald Armstrong (1892-1916).JPG)
R A Reid (War Service)
Ronald Armstrong Reid was born 19 June 1892 at Geelong, the son of William Hatrick Reid and Janet Hamilton Howat nee McIlwraith Reid, of Mooroobah, Retreat Road, Geelong. He was at the College until 1911.
He had studied 3rd year Medicine at Ormond College when he enlisted on 23 August 1915 in 15 Battalion (4412), and embarked with ‘Bully’ MacRoberts, his old schoolmaster, on
HMAT A64 Demosthenes on 29 December for Egypt. Promoted Lance Corporal on 17 June 1916, he was reported missing at Pozieres on 8 August, aged 24. After extensive enquiries from his family it was subsequently confirmed that he was killed in action on that day, this news did not reach his family until 24 May 1917.
Pte Roy Neighbour of his battalion (of Campbell Town, Tasmania) confirmed his death in a letter to the Red Cross Information Bureau dated 27 January 1919:
‘He was of D Company. At Pozieres on 8th August 1916 he was killed outright by bullet during our attack. We were advancing across No Man’s Land and had got down for a breaker. When I got up again, I caught hold of Reid, but saw that he had been shot through the head. He had not moved or spoken. This was when we had gone 100-150 yards. I was wounded shortly after and walked back with stretcher bearers. Know nothing of burial. Knew him as Reid.’ Alf Batchelder in his history of the Melbourne Cricket Club,
Playing the Greater Game, wrote:
‘In twelve days on Pozieres Ridge, the Second Division had seen almost continuous action. With 6848 casualties, more than any other Australian division ever suffered in a tour in the frontline, the Second was too devastated to continue and was replaced by the Fourth Division on August 5th. To regain Pozieres, the Germans hit the newcomers with tremendous shelling in an attack which came close to breaking the Australian lines. General Gough ordered a thrust northwards from Pozieres towards Mouquet Farm and Thiepval. Consequently, at dusk on August 8, MCC Member Lance Corporal Ronald Armstrong Reid advanced with the 15th Battalion behind a creeping barrage of artillery fire. Twelve months earlier, the former Geelong College student had been studying Third Year Medicine at Melbourne University, but abandoned his course to enlist. In moving towards the German trenches, some of the 15th ran into their own shellfire. Somewhere in the turmoil of that night, in a sea of shell craters, L/Cpl Reid lost his life. Over the following days, the Fourth Division inched forward, taking the brunt of the German resistance. When it was relieved by the First Division in mid-August, the Fourth had managed to bring the line within striking distance of Mouquet Farm - at a cost of 4649 casualties.’ Ron Reid has no known grave - his name is commemorated on Villers Bretonneux Memorial, France.
Sources: Based on an edited extract from Geelong Collegians at the Great War compiled by James Affleck. pp95-96 (citing The University of Melbourne: Record of Active Service of Teachers, Graduates, Undergraduates, Officers and Servants (1926); Alf Batchelder, Playing the Greater Game: The Melbourne Cricket Club and its Ground in World War I; Australian War Memorial; Photo Pegasus August, 1917.)