2nd Lieutenant Reginald Lothian STEVENS (108165)
2nd Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers

Date of birth: 16th September 1920
Date of death: 26th May 1940

Killed in action aged 19
Commemorated on the Dunkirk Memorial Column 50
He was born at Kasauli, India on the 16th of September 1920 the third son of Brigadier General George Archibald William Stevens CMG DSO, Royal Fusiliers, and Eugenie Rebecca (nee Macdonald) of "Hesperus", Clarence Road, Southsea in Hampshire.

He was educated at the Junior Kings School from May to July 1930.

He went on to the Royal Military College Sandhurst from where he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers on the 22nd of October 1939 and was posted as a replacement to the 2nd Battalion of his regiment, joining them in the field at Waldweistroff in Belgium the third week of March 1940.

The Germans invaded France and Belgium on the 10th of May 1940 and by the 22nd of May the 2nd Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers was in a defensive position at Tieghem in Belgium. At 2pm that day "all hell broke loose" when the Germans put down a very heavy artillery barrage on the Fusiliers' front line and their infantry were seen to be forming up for an attack. When the attack came the Fusiliers initially inflicted casualties among them but before long the men in their forward positions were "wiped out". At 3pm, a battalion of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, who were on their flank broke, leaving the Lancashire men badly exposed. A party under Captain Franklin was given orders to cover the battalion while it withdrew and at 6.15pm the order was given to retire. By 7.30pm a new position had been established on the Tieghem Ridge. This position soon came under shell fire and the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Rougier, was mortally wounded by a shell fragment at this time. At 8.15pm fresh orders arrived which instructed the battalion to fall back to the Franco-Belgian border. The battalion's casualties during the day were estimated at 173 men of all ranks.

By the evening of the 24th of May the battalion had established itself on a new line on the Halluin side of the Halluin-Menin Canal. They spent the night of the 24th and all day on the 25th strengthening their positions in anticipation of further attacks. On the morning of the 26th of May 1940 they came under light shelling, punctuated by frequent heavy exchanges of small arms fire and the activities of a number of enemy snipers.

During the day Reginald Stevens went forward to check on one of his platoon's forward posts when he was shot through the head by a sniper and died instantaneously.

The battalion war diary describes him thus:-

"He was a first class boy and died doing his duty and encouraging his men."

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has recorded the date of his death as the 22nd of May 1940 but the battalion war diary gives it as the 26th of May 1940.

He is commemorated on the war memorial at Portsmouth but he is not currently commemorated on the war memorial at the King’s School Canterbury.

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