REID, Walter William Bruce
| Service Number: | 2431 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | Not yet discovered |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | 13th Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Brindabella, New South Wales, Australia, 19 October 1893 |
| Home Town: | Brindabella, Tumut Shire, New South Wales |
| Schooling: | Brindabella, New South Wales, Australia |
| Occupation: | Labourer |
| Died: | Killed in Action, Belgium, 10 October 1917, aged 23 years |
| Cemetery: |
No known grave - "Known Unto God" Ypres (Menen Gate) Memorial, Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Flanders, Belgium |
| Memorials: | Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Queanbeyan Christ Church Honour Roll |
World War 1 Service
| 20 Aug 1915: | Involvement Private, 2431, 13th Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '11' embarkation_place: Sydney embarkation_ship: HMAT Shropshire embarkation_ship_number: A9 public_note: '' | |
|---|---|---|
| 20 Aug 1915: | Embarked Private, 2431, 13th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Shropshire, Sydney |
Help us honour Walter William Bruce Reid's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.
Add my storyBiography contributed by Annie Beach
Extract from 1992 Canberra Times article by Frank Cranston : "Bruce Reid, born on October 19, 1893, was one of 11 children of Wiliam and Sarah Reid, of Race Terrace, Brindabella, where William Reid prospected for gold.
By the outbreak of World War 1 in August 1914, he had
already left home and was a labourer at Portland, near Lithgow, NSW. He enlisted on May II, 1915, and
was posted to the 13th battalion. His pay was 5s a day, of which 4s was allotted to his family. There was an
other Is "deferred", pay which he could collect at the end of the war.
Aboard His Majesty's Australian Transport, Shropshire, Reid left Australia on August 20. 1915. and trained
in Egypt before being posted to Gallipoli from which he wrote on December 19, 1915, virtually on the eve of the
most successful evacuation ever of Allied forces from a hostile shore. As he observed in a letter from Cairo on
January 1, 1916, he was "among the last to leave".
In a letter from "Somewhere in France" in 1916, he observed, "Well, I'm still going alright in spite of all the
nasty things that Fritz is throwing about". There was also mention of the prospect of leave in London. He had
been transferred to the 45th to help stiffen it with a bit of experience.
On October 7, 1917, he was back from 10 days in London to which he seems already to have been a couple of times. "Funny, I will be 24 in a couple of weeks time - getting quite an old man am I not?" he wrote.
But it wasn't to be. Long before the letter was delivered the dread news had been cabled to his mother.
Mates wrote to his family with reassuring messages about how he died but about all they could confirm
was that as a Lewis (machine-gun) gunner Bruce Reid had been leading his section when a shell fell."
(read the article in full in the links section)
Family Background : 'Bruce' was born and raised in the bush, in the harsh conditions of the mountains of Brindabella. His mother, Sarah, was born in 1851 and the eldest of 12 children of John McDonald and Eliza Webb, from the successful property Uriarra (still in existence) and she, too, was brought up to be hardy. John and Eliza's parents were pioneers of Canberra, arriving in the area in the 1830s. Sarah was a renowned horsewoman and married William Reid, also a 'mountain man' and they lived a true bush life, far from the comforts of the city. (Annie Beach, family historian)
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