The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (S115574) Sapper William Reid, 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers, Second World War.

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. Hosted by Michael Kelly, the story for this day was on (S115574) Sapper William Reid, 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers, Second World War.

S115574 Sapper William Reid, 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers
Accidentally killed 21 May 1945
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 13 March 2016

Today we pay tribute to Sapper William Reid, who was killed in the service of the Royal Australian Engineers in 1945.

Born in Broken Hill, New South Wales, on 1 September 1909, William Reid resided in Adelaide. Married to Ruby Irene Height, he worked as a railway maintenance worker.

In November 1944 Reid was mobilised and called up for military service in the Militia. Posted to a training battalion in Cowra, New South Wales, he soon went absent without leave and was apprehended by the provosts back in his hometown of Adelaide 23 days later. For his absence he forfeited 23 days’ pay and was fined a further £5.

Not long after his return to the training battalion, Reid suffered a bout of dyspepsia – chronic gastro-intestinal pain – which hospitalised him for several weeks. He was posted at the end of April 1945 to the 1st Training Battalion, Royal Australian Engineers, at the large army training base at Kapooka. However, in the afternoon of 21 May 1945, tragedy struck.

Crowded within a dug-out during a routine demolition training exercise on the preparation of hand charges were two groups: one of 22 trainees and two instructors; another of three men and one instructor. Inside the dug-out were 110 pounds of explosives, stored for day’s training exercise. In circumstances that remain unknown, the explosives ignited, and in the explosion 24 men were killed instantly, two died of injuries shortly afterwards, and two more were severely injured.

Sapper William Reid was one of those killed in the accident. He was 36 years old.

A mass funeral was held for the men in Wagga Wagga, where thousands of people lined the route of the funeral parade. The 26 flag-draped coffins were carried on four army trucks, and the cortége included more than 100 military vehicles carrying members of the army and air force. The dead were buried in the Wagga Wagga War Cemetery.

Reid’s name and those of the other 25 men killed in the accident are listed here on the Roll of Honour on my left, among around 40,000 others from the Second World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Sapper William Reid, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Dr Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section