Oswald Bertram Reynolds

OSWALD BERTRAM REYNOLDS

Oswald Bertram Reynolds was born in Dunedin in 1892 and died at the Somme, France on 25 September 1916.

Oswald’s father, Alfred Edward Reynolds, was born at the Quinta do Carmo in Estremoz in Portugal in 1853.   Alfred’s father, Thomas Reynolds, had been born in London in 1811 and his mother, Maria Gertrudes Branco Dias in 1818 in the village of Santiago do Escoural in Portugal.   His family left Europe in 1856 and took up farming at Otara (to the east of Invercargill) in 1857.   After several years Alfred’s father decided that run holding was not for him and they moved to Dunedin.   Alfred grew up in Dunedin and seems to have a good number of interests – he excavated Moa Hunter remains at Shag River just north of Dunedin.

In 1889 Alfred married Margaret Lewis.   Their first child was born in 1890 and they were to have a total of eight children.   Oswald, their second child, was born in Dunedin in 1892.   In 1895 Alfred moved to Riverton where he was employed as Secretary of the Round Hill Mining Company,   Around fifty men worked for this company which was sluicing for gold in the hills to the west of Riverton.   Alfred was employed as its Secretary and Manager for fourteen years.

For their primary education the children attended the Riverton and Waihopai schools at Riverton.   After his primary schooling Oswald went to Southland Boy’s High School and he studied there in 1906-1908.   Once he left school he started work as an electrical engineer with the Dunedin City Council’

He volunteered to join the Army and he was enlisted as a gunner with the New Zealand Field Artillery in the New Zealand Division.   The Division arrived in France in April 1916 and until August that year was based near Armentieres.   They were then shifted south to reinforce British forces in the battle of the Somme.   This battle had been in progress since the first of July 1916 and things had not gone as well as the British generals might have hoped.  Both British and French troops had been fighting on this front and the New Zealand Division was sent south from Armentieres to reinforce the southernmost British troops.

A new offensive was being prepared for 15 September.   A new weapon – the tank – was to be used for the first time and it was hoped that this would deliver the long sought-for breakthrough.   The attach was to be made on a ten mile front extending from Thiepval in the west to Combles in the east.  This was the first time that the New Zealand Division had been employed in the Somme battle.  Their objective was to advance from Longueval to Flers.   The Second Otago Battalion was amongst the troops that were due to go over the top that day.   Oswald’s (second) cousin Lance-Corporal William Reynolds was one of them.  Less than three hours after the assault started the first New Zealand troops were in the village of Flers along with – famously – the first tank ever to be used on active service.   The Otago Battalion was heavily hit with a fifty five percent casualty rate.   William Reynolds was badly wounded and he died on 17 September.   He is buried in the New Zealand section of the Caterpillar Valley Cemetery.

On the 16^th of September 1916 the New Zealand guns were brought forward through the mud to provide closer support to the front line.   It was difficult work because of the deep mud.   Up to twenty horses had to be harnessed to each gun in order to drag it forward as the gunners re-established themselves in the Devil’s Valley south of Flers.   Over the next week the ground dried out which allowed the Germans to move their guns into a position from where they were able to attack the New Zealand Artillery battery.   They bombarded them with gas and lachrymatory shells asd well as the more conventional high explosives.

On the 25^th September Oswald Reynolds was killed. It is likely that, at first, he was buried in a small grave yard close to where he died.   After the war over three thousand casualties from around Lesboeufs were gathered in and buried alongside the forty officers and men from the Grenadier Guards who had originally been buried in the Guard’s Cemetery. Oswald’s remains are now interred there.