GRAY, Reginald Albert

Reginald Gray was born in Bristol, Gloucestershire, in Octobet, 1893. He enlisted at Kerang, Victoria, on 21 November, 1917, having been once rejected for being under height - he was only 5 feett 1 inch tall. He was a dealer by occupation, but what he dealt in is not disclosed in his record. He named as his next of kin his father, Charles Joseph Gray, a plumber, living at 24 Victoria Road, Westbury Park, Bristol, England. He went in for training at Broadmeadows Recruitment Depot on  31 May and remained there until moved to Seymour on 18 June, 1917. on 19 September, his training completed, he was taken on strength with the 20-23rd Reinforcements of the 23rd Battalion, then fighting in France.

The Reinforcements left Australia on 21 November, 1917, on board HMAT Nestor A 71. They disembarked in Egypt, where they were placed in the Australian Camp at Suez from 15 December, 1917 until 1 January, 1918.  From here, they embarked on HMT Abbassich. presumbaly for England, but Reginald Gray was offloaded at Taranto, Italy, where he was placed in isolation in hospital. Whatever his illness was, it was short-lived and on 13 February, he was in England, marchign out to the Miltary Camp at Fovant. Here he was alloteed the letter A, to be attached to his original number, 68391, to avoid duplication. At Fovant, he was attached to the 5th Taining Battalion and promoted to Lance Corporal on 20 April, but then reverted to ranks.

He left England on 29 April for France and the Western Front. leaving from Folkestone and marchign into the New Zealand Base Depot on 30 April. He finally joined the 23rd Battalion on 7 May, 1918. His military career, however, was brief. On 25 May he was back in England, admitted to the Eastbourne Central Military Hospital with a severe derangement of his right knee, caused by an accident on 19 May. On 3 July, he was transferred to the 3rd Auxiliary Hospital for convalescence, but still suffering from sinovitis. He did not return to the battlefront, but was returned to Australia on the Port Darwin on 25 September, 1918.

Reginald Gray returned to Kerang and remained there in the early 1920s. In 1924, he married Alice May Damon. They were to have three children, Harold, Ronnie and Reggie. By 1934, he and Alice were living at Erribee South, where he was a farmer. Alice died in Rchmond - probably at one of the hospitals - in 1940.  Reginald Albert Gray died in 1970, at Brunswick.