Lieutenant Colonel William Leonard Eliot REYNOLDS (8773) MC MRCS LRCP
Royal Army Medical Corps

Date of birth: 4th April 1889
Date of death: 17th October 1939

Killed on active service aged 50
Commemorated on the Brookwood Memorial Panel 18 Column 1
He was born at Portland in Dorset on the 4th of April 1889, the son of Francis Reynolds, bank manager, and Emily Maude (nee Winham)of 31, Fortune's Well,Portland, Dorset. He was christened at Portland on the 29th of April 1889.

He was educated at the King’s School Canterbury from January 1903 to April 1906. On leaving school he studied medicine at the University of London from the 1st of October 1906, where he was a member of the Officer Training Corps. In 1910 he went on to Guy’s Hospital, lodging at 17, Bartram Road, Crofton Park, and becoming MRCS Eng and LRCP Lond in 1915.

He was commissioned as a Lieutenant on probation in the Royal Army Medical Corps Special Reserve on the 19th of September 1914, was mobilised on the 2nd of February 1915 and was confirmed in his rank in March 1915.

He was posted to 56th Field Ambulance, part of 18th Division, and embarked with them for France at Southampton in the early evening of the 26th of July 1915. They arrived off Le Havre at 3am the following morning and disembarked at 7am. On the 10th of August 1915 they were at St Gratein where they were ordered to establish a sick ward for soldiers of the Division. The ward was established in a barn and William Reynolds was placed in charge of it during its opening. He served with them until 1916 when he was posted as Medical Officer to the 7th (Service) Battalion Queen's Own (Royal West Kent Regiment) and joined them on the 2nd of July 1916, serving with them on the western front until the end of the war. He was promoted to Captain on the 1st of January 1917.

In early 1917, he wrote a letter to the Cantuarian:-

"...I'm afraid, despite your repeated requests for letters from O.K.S., I can tell you very little of interest, as I have been unfortunate enough to run across very few O.K.S. out here. While still with a Field Ambulance about a year ago, I met C.S. Emden and Latter, and funnily enough joined their battalion as M.O. last July, but both of them, and Cross--- had become casualties only the day before. We heard Latter was coming back to us about 10 days ago, but I believe he has been sent to another battalion after all. I hope the school is still going strong. I am always looking forward to coming down again one of these days in the rather dim future. I also came across H.H.E. Gosset for a brief moment one day 14 months ago with a Field Coy R.E. just packing up to go off to Salonica."

On the 12th of October 1917 the 7th Battalion Royal West Kent Regiment was detailed to attack the village of Poelcapelle with little gained. Of the 600 men who went over the top that morning about half became casualties by the evening of the 13th when they came out of the line. For his work that day a strong recommendation was sent to Divisional Headquarters for Captain Reynolds to receive a Distinguished Service Order - "To the disappointment of all ranks he was only awarded the Military Cross."

The citation read:-

"For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in working for twenty four hours amongst the wounded. In addition to his work at the regimental aid post he went to the front frequently by day and night attending the wounded under heavy fire."

A fellow OKS, G.R. Cooke wrote:-

"The real fly in the ointment is that Reynolds only got the M.C. He did wonderful work in a place where he was subject to fairly bad shelling. One pill box had 9 direct hits during three days. But not only that, he was walking about amid severe sniping and machine gun fire personally superintending the collection of the wounded. If ever a man deserved the M.C. it was he."

In 1918 he was attached to the 15th Convalescent Depot. After the war he served with the 2nd Cavalry Division in Germany until March 1919 before joining the 155th Field Ambulance as part of the North Russia Relief Force from May to October 1919. He served in West Africa from 1920 to August 1921 and at Constantinople in 1922 and 1923, before returning to West Africa from 1923 to May 1924.

He was married in London in 1925 to Margaret Joan Pattinson (nee Steele)and they had three children, Mark, Elizabeth and Christopher. The family lived at “St Mary’s”, Ewshot in Hampshire

He was promoted to Major on the 2nd of February 1927 and served in India from 1929 to 1933. He and the family returned to England and lived at "Belfrey" Cottage at Chidham in Sussex before he returned to India once again, from 1938 to 1939. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on the 27th of August 1939 and was Deputy Assistant Director General of Army Medical Services at the War Office.

In September 1939 he boarded the 10,183 ton cargo steamer SS Yorkshire, under the command of Master Victor Charles Patrick Smalley, at India bound for Liverpool. She was carrying a cargo of paraffin wax and general cargo with a total of two hundred and seventy eight passengers and crew on board and sailed as part of convoy HG-3. Most of the passengers were medical personnel and army families returning from the east. The ship docked en route at Rangoon and left there on the 13th of September. She left Gibraltar on the 17th of October 1939, as part of an unescorted convoy when the ship was torpedoed off the coast of Portugal at 4.31pm by U Boat U-37, under the command of Kaptain Werner Hartmann. William Reynolds had placed a small leather suitcase containing his papers and medals in a lifeboat before returning to the stricken ship for a third time; he did not return. The case and its contents were, in due course, presented by his family to the Royal Army Medical Corps Museum. The ship sank in just seventeen minutes with the loss of twenty four of its crew and thirty three passengers, who were mostly women and children. The survivors were picked up by the American steam cargo ship Independence Hall and were landed at Bordeaux on the 20th of October 1939.


The Cantuarian wrote:-

"A gentle and charming character has been taken from us by the sinking of the SS "Yorkshire" on September 17th (sic). "Pussy" Reynolds, with his retiring and modest nature, was always popular and had any amount of grit and, as the Great War proved, of cool bravery. A large number of friends will deplore his loss, and we should like to extend our sympathy with his relations."

He is commemorated on the war memorial at Chidham in Sussex and on the memorial at Guy’s Hospital.
 

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