The AIF Project

Bernard George REID

Regimental number2211
Place of birthEast Sydney, New South Wales
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationLabourer
Address112 Bourke Street, East Sydney, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation21
Next of kinMother, Mrs A Reid, 112 Bourke Street, East Sydney, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date5 July 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name20th Battalion, 4th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/37/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A8 Argyllshire on 30 September 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll20th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 20 September 1917
Age at death from cemetery records23
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe 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 July 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.

Panel number, Roll of Honour,
  Australian War Memorial
92
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: James and Annie REID, 21 Harmer Street, East Sydney
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Taken on strength, 20th Bn, Tel el Kebir, 19 January 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 18 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 25 March 1916.

Found guilty, 19 June 1916, of 'when in billets being found beyond the limits fixed by Btn Orders without a pass'; awarded 7 days' Field Punishment No. 2.

Tried by Field General Court Martial, 25 November 1916, of (1) when on active service deserting His Majesty's Service; (2) when on active service being absent without leave from 12 August 1916 until apprehended, 8 September 1916. Found Not Guilty on charge (1); Guilty on charge (2). Awarded 2 years' imprisonment with hard labour; sentence confirmed, 4 December 1916. Admitted to No. 1 Military Prison, Rouen, 29 December 1916. Released, 1 July 1917, and entrained for unit. Remainder of sentence suspended as from date of prison release. rejoined 20th Bn, 2 July 1917.

Wounded and missing in action, Belgium, 20 September 1917; subsequently confirmed by Court of Enquiry, 14 March 1918, as killed in action. Statement by 3236 Pte J.C. Queenan, 10 January 1918: 'On 28.9.1917 I went over the top with him and had advanced 20 yards when Reid called out that he was hit and fell down. I returned later but could find no trace of him and nobody else that I know of saw any trace of him. I knew him very well and have no doubt that this is the man referred to.'

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal

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